One Step Up and One Step DOwn
by sknkodiak
Summary: The McFadden family has faced terrible loss before. But now they are faced with the loss of their youngest brother.
1. Chapter 1

**ONE STEP UP AND ONE STEP DOWN.**

_One:_

Ford McFadden crept quietly down the hospital corridor, stepped on to the elevator, and pushed the button for the fifth floor. His heart was pounding hard in his chest and he gasped for air. Seemed like he'd been holding his breath for so long, ever since he'd slipped out of the McFadden farmhouse in the dark of the early morning hours and coasted the old International truck down the driveway before he'd fired up the noisy engine.

The elevators slid open onto the brightly lit and cheerful walls of Pediatrics. Ford found himself staring straight into the jungle scene both he had and Evan had commented about the first day they'd seen it. A local artist had painted it, as a gift; it stretched all down the long wall to the nurse' station. Hidden animals crouched among the trees and long grasses. Not all of the animals were in their natural habitat: one scene showed a tiger wearing blue jeans sitting over cokes with a lion wearing a tuxedo and wearing a crown. Dolphins cavorted in the ponds with hippos playing volleyball. Two monkeys swung from flowery vines, apparently playing polo with a zebra and two kangaroos. All of the animals had almost human, smiling faces. The first day here, when it had been all about the waiting and the tests and everyone trying to hide how worried they were, Evan and Ford had spent hours staring at the mural, making lists of all the animals they saw, trying desperately not to think about why they were here.

He'd put on tennis shoes, instead of his boots, when he'd dressed in his dark bedroom, intent on not waking an exhausted Evan, or anyone else in the family. Those first terrified hours, they'd all stayed at the hospital, but after the second day oldest brother Adam had imposed order. Adam, Crane and Hannah took turns spending the night. Brian and Daniel split the days, with the other members of the family visiting as much as possible, while still keeping the ranch running. Evan and Ford came in the evenings, after school, after chores. Both of them wanted to be there more. Evan wasn't going to his rodeo classes after school. Ford barely paid attention in class. He was sure he'd flunked a pop quiz in Geometry that morning; for the first time in his life, he didn't even care.

They'd all been here this afternoon, though, to hear the results of the last bunch of tests. The news had been both terrifying and wonderful.

Ford's little brother Guthrie was sick. Very sick. So sick the word "dying" was no longer just a nightmare lost in the grip of darkness.

But Ford could save him. Ford _would_ save him.

The nurse looked up from her charting. She half rose, and then she seemed to recognize him, although Ford wasn't sure he'd ever seen her. She smiled. "You're here late. Or early, I guess. You by yourself?"

After the third day, the hospital staff had stopped even mentioning the words "Visiting hours."

Ford nodded, summoned up a smile from somewhere. "I couldn't sleep," he admitted, and that was true enough. "How is he?"

"He's asleep. Your older brother left a few minutes ago. Went to get coffee. He'll be back in a few minutes."

Adam was keeping sentry duty tonight over their youngest brother. It was Adam, even more than Guthrie, that Ford had been driven to see. "I'll just go down to Guthrie's room."

The nurse frowned. "Don't wake him," she cautioned. "He's a very sick boy."

Ford bit his lip. He wanted to rail at her, _Do you think I don't know that? _But he didn't. They couldn't help it, he'd decided. Nurses must be trained to say stupid stuff like that. "I won't," he managed to say. He went down the hall to one of the last rooms from the nurse's station. He'd heard a couple of nurses talking, one day in the cafeteria, about how Guthrie was so sick he really should be closer to the station, but then one nurse had said, _'He's never alone. He's always got family with him. Some of the other kids on the floor don't."_

_"Funny, isn't it?" _the other nurse had commented. _"The one kid on the ward who is technically an orphan, and he has more family caring about him than the ones with parents and grandparents."_

The door was ajar. Ford slipped in. Almost all the lights in the room were dark, just the light above the bed was glowing. Ford tiptoed through the room and slid into the chair by the bed. He studied his sleeping brother. Guthrie looked even worse than he had that afternoon. The doctors had said they were keeping the worst of the pain at bay with medication, but as toxins built up he'd be more uncomfortable. Guthrie had had two dialysis treatments so far. It had almost destroyed Ford when his little brother broke down in tears hearing he would have to have more of them. Guthrie was a tough little guy. He'd had to be, growing up with six older brothers. It took a lot to make him cry.

Ford slid his hand over Guthrie's, feeling the abnormal puffiness in his fingers. More signs of ESRD: end stage renal disease. Ford had done stayed late at school one day, doing research. He still couldn't believe Guthrie-his baby brother, who was only twelve years old-was in "end stage" anything.

"Ford? What are you doing here?"

Adam's voice was hushed, in deference to their sleeping brother, but still Ford was startled. He swung around in the chair to see his oldest brother leaning against the door. Honestly, Adam didn't look much better than Guthrie. Worry and exhaustion had drawn harsh lines on the oldest McFadden's handsome face.

When Ford didn't say anything, Adam frowned. "Ford? What's going on? Did anybody come with you?"

Ford shook his head. "They were all asleep. I came on my own. I have to talk to you."

Adam sighed. He took a sip from the steaming Styrofoam cup in his hand. "I hope you left a note," he said wearily. "Brian and Hannah'll be up in a few hours, and I don't want them to have to worry about you, too."

Ford shook his head. He hadn't left a note, hadn't wanted to take the time and run the risk someone would wake up. "They'll figure out where I am," he said, because, really, where else would he be?

Adam looked down at Ford's hand holding Guthrie's, and some of the lines eased from his face. "Look, Ford, I think I know why you're here."

"You do?" Ford asked, surprised.

"Yeah." Adam came farther into the room, put his cup down on the bedside table, and rested his hand on Ford's blond hair. "I know all this is frightening. Especially what we found out today. But, Ford, you don't have to worry. I told you, we'll make the decision that works best for everybody. It doesn't have to be you."

Ford stared at his older brother. "What are you talking about? You think I'm here because I don't want-you think I'm a coward?"

"Of course not!" There was no mistaking the conviction in Adam's tone, even if his voice was barely above a whisper. "But it's okay to be scared. I'm scared. And you have your whole life-"

Ford had to interrupt. Adam was sounding just like Daniel had, earlier this evening. "No. I mean, you're wrong. I…I'm the one who needs to do it. I want to give Guthrie one of my kidneys."

Adam passed a weary hand in front of his face. "I know you do," he said calmly, like he just hadn't told Ford he didn't have to, not one minute before. "But Ford, it's not your decision."

"The hell it's not!" Ford couldn't ever remember cussing at his oldest brother. By the look of shock on Adam's face, he couldn't remember it ever happening, either. Shooting a look at the bed to make sure he hadn't woken Guthrie up, Ford went on in a whisper. "I don't mean to be disrespectful, Adam. You know that. But Daniel, Evan and I are the closest matches to Guthrie. It needs to be one of us. And…we decided it would be me."

"Really," Adam drawled. "And you drove all the way into Sonora at three o'clock in the morning to tell me what the three of you decided."

"Yes!" Ford insisted. "I-we wanted to tell you right away. So you can tell the doctors first thing, and they can schedule the surgery and-and Guthrie can start getting better." He heard his own voice break and dropped his head before Adam could see the tears in his eyes.

Too late. The oldest McFadden came closer and wrapped his arms around Ford, hugging him tightly. "You're a good brother, Ford," he whispered. Then he pulled away and started down into Ford's eyes. "So what criteria did the three of you use to decide who would donate?"

"Yeah, I'd love to hear that too," said a new voice from the doorway.

Ford and Adam jerked around to see Daniel and Evan-both of them looking tired and pissed off-in the door. Behind them loomed Crane and Brian. Hannah pushed past all of them and slipped into Adam's free arm.

Adam raised his eyebrows. "What are you all doing here?"

"I woke up and little brother, there, wasn't in his bed," Evan volunteered, nodding at Ford.

"And the rest of us woke up when he went pounding on all the doors looking for you," Daniel told Ford.

"We were worried, Ford," Hannah said softly.

"You could have left a note," Crane pointed out.

Daniel folded his arms and glared at Ford. "Now, it seems like you were telling big brother here that _we-" _he pointed at himself and Evan "all agreed that _you_ were going to do this. Which is a surprise to me, because _I _thought we all agreed it should be _me."_

"Like hell we did!" Evan fired back, glaring at both of them.

"Language!" Adam snapped, and then he blushed when they all stared at him, because, _really?_

"What's going on?" asked a tiny voice from the bed. Everyone turned to look, and Guthrie was awake, blinking sleepily. He looked around and saw all of them and his eyes lit up.

"Oh, this is just too much." The night nurse bustled in then, squeezing past McFaddens until she got to the bed. "You're supposed to be asleep, young man," she said, sounding for all of the world like a parent. "And all of you-you can't _all _be here at night. We have to think of the other patients."

Ford couldn't figure out what the other children on the floor had to do with it. This was _his _family. "You know I'm right," he begged, looking at all of them but especially at Daniel and Evan.

"I'm the oldest!" Daniel insisted.

"_I'm_ the closest match!" Evan fired back.

"By one half a percentage point! A difference that doesn't make any difference isn't a difference at all!"

Brian shook his head. "Okay, it's way too early in the morning to try to figure out what that means."

"Why are you fighting?" Guthrie broke in, looking around wide-eyed.

That small, frightened voice froze everyone in their tracks. The nurse shook her head at all of them and leaned over Guthrie. "Are you hurting, sweetie? I'll get some pain medicine." She started to leave the room. "Your family can say good night while I'm gone, because when I get back, I only want to see one, or at the most, two of you here." She lowered her voice, hissing, "If you all are going to argue, take it out to the waiting room! He doesn't need to see his family falling apart right now."

There was silence when she left.

"Why are you fighting?" Guthrie asked again. He looked around and swallowed hard. His eyes were too bright when he asked, "Is it about me?"

"Of course not," Brian started, coming to the other side of the bed.

"Don't lie to him," Crane snapped. He sat down on the edge of the bed. "In a way, it's about you, Guth. But no one's angry with you. We just all want you to get better."

Ford thought that the glares he'd been getting from Evan and Daniel were _nothing _compared to what Brian and Crane were exchanging above Guthrie's head.

"Okay, that's enough," Hannah said. "You all need to talk this out, and stop trying to pick fights with each other. It's not helping anything." She looked up at her husband then. "I'll stay here with Guthrie," she said gently. "I know you wanted to wait until morning to hash this out, but everybody's here and no one is getting any sleep, anyway."

Adam unclenched his jaw long enough to give her a loving smile. Then he pointed to the door. "All of you, out. Since we're going to do this now, let's do as the nurse said and go to the waiting room."

"But I want to know what's going on!" Guthrie implored, reaching out to catch Crane's sleeve. "Why are you all mad?"

"Yeah, _Crane, _why don't you explain that to him?" Brian said acidly.

"Stop it!" Adam went toe to toe with Brian. "I know you're scared. But this isn't helping!"

Brian stared at him for a second, then dropped his gaze. "You're right. I'm just…" he took a deep breath. "Crane," he started.

"I know," the third brother said. "Me too." He looked at Guthrie. "We're all worried about you, you know, Guth," he said quietly. "And we all feel helpless. So we're yelling at each other. But we'll stop, I promise." He leaned over and kissed their youngest on his forehead. He stood up and Hannah slipped into his place.

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

_Two: Two Steps Up…_

Later, everyone would look back and remember things that didn't seem all that important at the time, but would take on horrifying significance as a pattern of events. But as far as Daniel McFadden was concerned, it all started with the eggs.

Four weeks earlier…

It was a frigidly cold morning that Saturday. Daniel was sleepy at breakfast; his band had just accepted a gig playing Friday and Saturday nights for a month in a well-known bar in Sonora. Last night had been their first performance and he'd been thrilled with how responsive the crowd had been, especially when he sang a new song he and Crane had finished just the week before. The job paid well, and it was a whole different crowd than the folks around Murphys and the other small towns in the area. Best of all, his oldest brother, Adam-who often seemed disapproving of Daniel's desire for a professional music career-had been encouraging about the job and hadn't even muttered a concern about the distance to Sonora and how late Daniel would be getting home.

Daniel appreciated that Adam was making a real effort to be supportive, and he'd wanted to return the favor by showing his work on the ranch wouldn't be affected by the late hours. Still, he was dragging this morning. The band had played until well after midnight, and Daniel had been riding high on the good vibes and couldn't calm down enough to sleep until almost four a.m. Fortunately, although ranch work never ceased, it did slow down a little on a cold winter morning. Rather than having to rise between five and six, Daniel got to sleep in until almost seven. After breakfast, he and Crane started shoveling manure out of the barn, with Daniel excitedly telling Crane about the evening. He'd been a little disappointed no one from the family had been able to come to his show the night before, but Crane and Brian both promised to come that night. And Daniel knew his sister in law, Hannah, was working on Adam to go along as well.

Brian and Adam had saddled up after breakfast and ridden out to check on the cattle. They'd brought the whole herd down a few weeks ago, just before the first snow of winter, and pastured them in the low lands. The two oldest McFaddens were checking on the animals, and to make sure the ponds weren't frozen over and that dry feed was available. Their prize bull was in his own pasture near the barn.

Evan was exercising his talent with animals, soothing Tartan. The spirited Appaloosa was new to the ranch, and with foal, due in early spring. She'd been restless the last few days, especially since the sweeping winds had scoured the snow clean from the land. She seemed to want to get out and run, but in her condition they wanted to keep her safe near the house, so Evan had taken her for a short walk and was now brushing her and talking to her in a low voice.

Ford was taking care of the goats and sheep, rationing out feed and suffering crowding and bumping from the hungry animals. Guthrie was looking for eggs, which was actually easier in the cold weather than warm. During the winter the chickens pretty much stayed in the barn. In warmer weather they could be anywhere in the barn or the adjacent yard. Still there were always one or two broody old hens that would hide their nests. "We should keep them in a coop. Or a henhouse, or something," Guthrie groused, coming from Diablo's stall with three eggs in his hand. He gently laid them in the basket with the others.

What kind of moronic hen would make a nest in Diablo's stall, Daniel couldn't imagine.

"Looks like you've probably got them all," Crane mentioned, glancing into the basket.

"One more place to check," Guthrie said, heading for the ladder to the hayloft.

"Oh, come on," Daniel protested. "How would a chicken get up there?"

"They can fly!"

"Not that far!"

Guthrie peeked over the edge of the loft. He held up his hand, showing two eggs. A cocky grin lit his face. "Who's hunting these eggs, Daniel? Me or you?" Then he vanished back into the loft.

"I wish we could go along tonight and cheer for you," Ford said, standing up and pushing goats out of the way.

"Or throw rotten eggs at you," Evan teased, closing the stall door behind himself.

From up in the loft, they could hear Guthrie protest, "We don't have rotten eggs!"

"Tomatoes, then!" Evan shouted back. He turned to Daniel. "Hey, you know I'm just kidding, don't you?"

"Yeah, sure I do. I wish you could be there, too," Daniel admitted. "But they're pretty strict about the no one under twenty-one thing. It's not like around here."

That was one of the reasons Daniel had been so surprised, and a little leery, when the manager of The Huddle in Sonora had called and offered his band the job, without even an audition. Daniel himself was under twenty-one, and so were two other band members. Dan Hagan, the manager, had explained he had heard Daniel and his band at The Alamo.

To be honest, Daniel had almost refused the job then and there. His ego-not to mention the rest of him-had taken a real bruising when he'd realized the only reason The Alamo had hired them was to set up Daniel for a drunk and disorderly charge. All to derail Adam in his run for sheriff. Even the arrest of the owner, the crooked sheriff, and Jocko and his gang of goons hadn't done much to ease his guilt. He hated being embarrassed, and even more he hated being used as a patsy to hurt one of his brothers. The bruises on his body had healed but the wounds to his soul would take a little longer.

But Hagan had explained he hadn't been in the bar that night, he'd been in earlier, when Daniel had been auditioning. He liked what he'd heard. So when his regular weekend band had taken off for a better gig in the Bay area, his first thought had been of Daniel.

Guthrie appeared at the edge of the loft again. "Okay, Ford, get ready to catch!"

Ford moved into position and spread his hands up as if he was going to catch a baseball. "I'm ready!"

"What are you two-" Crane started, just as Guthrie started dropping eggs. His eyes widened as Ford caught each one neatly, gently putting the unbroken egg in the basket before getting ready to catch another. All in all, five eggs were transferred this way, with not a crack to be seen.

"All right!" Evan applauded. He shot a look at Daniel. "Don't remember this being so fun when you and I were the ones hunting eggs."

"I don't remember you ever going up into the hayloft, either," Daniel retorted, seeing Guthrie swing his legs over to the ladder.

Daniel happened to be looking straight at his youngest brother, so he saw what happened. One second Guthrie was on the ladder, both hands and feet secure…and the next he was falling through the air, slamming into the hard ground with a crash and a pained groan that made the hair on the back of Daniel's neck rise.

_"Guthrie!" _Ford yelled, jumping over the basket of eggs to get to his brother's side. Somehow Daniel got there too, although he didn't remember either dropping the shovel or moving. Evan was already on his knees beside the youngest McFadden, grabbing his arm and trying to pull him up.

"Don't move him!" Crane snapped. He dropped down beside Guthrie, making Evan let go. "Somebody go get Hannah," he commanded, placing his hands on either side of Guthrie's head. "It's okay," he said soothingly. "It's okay, Guthrie. You just got the wind knocked out of you." He looked up, apparently realizing the other three were still standing there. "Go get Hannah!" He ordered again.

Daniel was closest to the door, so he turned and ran, all the way from the barn and slammed into the kitchen door. Some part of his mind noted the good warm smell of soup and heard Hannah humming a little song as she laid out fixings for sandwiches. She whirled when the door slammed against the wall, though, saying, "Hey, you don't-Daniel, what's wrong?"

Daniel gasped for air; he felt like the wind had been knocked out of him, too, when he'd seen Guthrie fall. "Guthrie fell. In the barn. Crane said to get you," he hurried. But because Hannah was only wearing a lightweight sweater and jeans, he added, "No, it's freezing out there; get your coat."

It seemed to take forever to find Hannah's coat and a warm stocking cap. Even longer before they were back in the barn and Daniel could hear Guthrie protesting, "I'm fine, Crane!"

Crane wasn't listening, telling Guthrie, "Move your legs. Slowly. Does that hurt? Does your back hurt?"

Hannah went straight to the group huddled around Guthrie. "Okay, guys," she said calmly, although Daniel could tell she was worried. "Back off and give him some room."

Guthrie's face lit up when he saw her. "Hannah, tell Crane I'm fine. I just lost my grip."

"You hit the floor pretty hard," Ford stated, his face almost as pale as his hair.

"Did you hit your head?" Hannah asked, running her hands through Guthrie's thick hair.

"Don't think so." Guthrie was calmer now, his eyes following Hannah. He managed a weak smile. "You're all acting like no one ever fell out of the hay loft before."

The other McFadden's exchanged rueful looks, because Guthrie was right. Probably everybody but Hannah had fallen from the loft before, some of them more than once or twice.

"Most of us don't hit so hard we bounce," Evan said. The words were teasing but he still looked pretty scared.

"I'm _fine_," Guthrie said again. "Can I get up now? It's cold down here on the floor."

Daniel saw Hannah and Crane exchange glances, then Hannah nodded. "I think he's okay. He's probably oing to have some pretty spectacular bruises though. Guthrie, you let Crane and Evan help you up, then you and I are going to the house and I'm going to look you all over."

Guthrie blushed. "Hannah!" he protested. "Can't Crane do it? I mean, you're a girl."

Hannah laughed. All of them relaxed then, Evan and Daniel both grinning and Ford looking even more sympathetic.

"I'm glad you realize that, cowboy," Hannah teased. "And yes, if it will protect your dignity, Crane can help you take a shower and check you for any protruding bones then."

Guthrie muttered something about how he knew how to take a shower by _himself, _thank you very much, but he let Crane and Evan lift him from the floor and set him on his feet. "Can you make it to the house, squirt?" Evan asked, his grin wide and no doubt relieved at seeing little brother standing up on his own, albeit with Crane still holding him. "I can give you a piggy back ride."

"I'm almost as tall as you!" Guthrie protested, which was so far from the truth and yet was so reminiscent of something they'd all said at one time or another that everyone laughed.

Crane reported later that Guthrie wasn't even that bruised, making Evan reiterate his "bouncing" comment. Still, Daniel was remained nervous until lunch, which was eaten later than usual. Seeing Guthrie dive into the hot, thick soup in his bowl eased Daniel's last fear.

"What's all in this soup?" Brian asked Hannah as he accepted a second helping and made another sandwich.

"Beans, potatoes, leftover steak, onions, macaroni," Hannah ticked off on her fingers.

_"Leftover _steak?" Evan wondered. "Since when do we ever have leftover anything?"

"Guess I'm just finally learning how much to cook for you hungry yahoos," Hannah smiled. "Couple of you left meat on your plates. And there was one whole steak left over."

"Going vegetarian, again, Crane?" Adam quipped. At that they all roared with laughter, save Hannah, who didn't know about the time Crane came home from UC Davis for Thanksgiving insisting he was no longer a "carnivore". That resolve lasted until the turkey feast was served, when Crane had dived in as enthusiastically as any other McFadden. He'd later admitted there was a girl at school-a vegetarian-that he'd been trying to get close to.

Adam told the story now, and then Crane added, "And after all that, I got _one_ date with her before she dumped me for some lumberjack from Washington, who ate a whole slab of bacon for breakfast. Last I heard, they got married and were running a barbeque place near Olympia!"

It was only later, when Daniel was helping Hannah clear the table, that he noticed Guthrie's bowl was still half-full of soup and he couldn't remember seeing the boy eat a sandwich.  
Then he shrugged. Guthrie might have survived his fall from the ladder okay, but he was probably still shaken up. _'He'll make up for it at supper,' _Daniel thought, and then started worrying again about the gig that night in Sonora.

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	3. Chapter 3

_Author's Notes: Many thanks for all the comments on this story! Especially emjac, and the "guests", to whom I couldn't send a response. Ya'll have made me feel so welcome here!_

_Thanks to May for betaing this monster and to Wendy, who doesn't remember much about the fandom but know how to correct my horrible grammar and punctuation mistakes. Any mistakes left are my own fault._

_Three: One Step Down_

At seventeen, Evan was the only McFadden to have inherited his mother's strawberry-blonde hair. Although, to be honest, he'd always thought it was more "strawberry"-red-than blonde.

He'd be the first one to admit he'd inherited the temper that went along with it. Not that he could ever remember his mom as having as short a fuse as he did. But still, although he idolized his older brothers, he much preferred his to any of theirs.

Evan was actually one of the most laid-back of the family. He had the fiery temper, sure, but his recovery time was almost instantaneous. He couldn't hold a grudge to save his life. And he would much rather get mad and have it over with-even if it did involve him having his foot in his mouth half the time-than brooding about it for days on end.

Adam and Brian both had the hair-trigger temper, Brian a lot worse than Adam. Or maybe becoming a de-facto parent at eighteen had given Adam more patience. But Adam got mad when he was scared. Or when a situation was out of his control. And then he felt awful for losing his cool.

Brian had hoof-in-mouth disease far worse than Evan had ever thought about. And boy, could he hold a grudge. Sometimes he was still holding said grudge long after he could remember what he had been mad about initially. Case in point, Wheeler, his whole family, and any of his employees. Just having Brian and one or two of Wheeler's men in town at the same time made the sheriff nervous.

Crane came across as calm even when he wasn't. He had far more patience than Brian, but he worried like a first time mare with her first colt. Evan had always been amazed Crane had actually stayed at college long enough to get his degrees. Adam and Brian practically had to hog-tie him to the truck every time he had to go back to school. He worried about who was paying the bills, who was keeping the books, who was watching over the "youngsters", and probably most about Daniel.

Then there was Daniel. Evan was energetic; Daniel was almost hyperactive. Music, songwriting, singing, ranch work, repairs, spelunking, sports, drying-out drunk singers, girls-you name it, Daniel seemed to have an interest in it. Maybe that was what made him a good singer-songwriter, Evan wasn't sure. But he always thought it must be exhausting to _be_ Daniel.

Daniel, Evan and Ford had all been born within a three-year span. The three of them were close, even though they were all so different. Like Crane, Ford had a long fuse on his temper and hardly ever lost it. He was the most bashful and quiet of the family, but he could stand up and pull his weight. When he thought about it, which wasn't often, Evan figured Daniel and Ford were his two best friends in the world.

Evan wasn't a worrier. Why worry when you had your whole family to support you?

Now, as he let himself into the warm kitchen, he absorbed the quiet in the house. The McFadden house was just not usually quiet. Brothers would be wrestling eating or arguing or just talking loudly; there was usually singing or dancing or something to do with music. Hannah held her own well in the midst of so many males.

But tonight, the quiet was due to the fact only the three youngest McFaddens were home. All the rest had gone into Sonora again, to listen to Daniel and his band play their second weekend at The Huddle. Evan had gone down to the barn to take one last check of the animals. Ford, he knew, was up in their shared room working on a homework assignment, something for History or English, Evan couldn't remember exactly although Ford had been talking about it all day.

Guthrie was…well, Evan wasn't exactly sure but he was in the house somewhere. Probably keeping Ford company, or maybe he'd gone into Adam and Hannah's room to watch a program on the old black and white portable up there. The big TV downstairs hadn't worked for years, and they never seemed to have the money to replace it. Guthrie probably watched far less television than any kid in his class. Evan couldn't blame him for taking advantage of the chance to catch a show.

But Guthrie wasn't watching TV. Evan stopped in the laundry room, to grab a pile of clean jeans to take upstairs, and as he came into the living room, he almost fell over the pullout bed. Because it _was _pulled out, and Guthrie was curled up on it, still wearing the clothes he'd had on all day, fast asleep.

Evan stopped, frowning. He dropped the jeans on a nearby chair and stood with his hands on his hips, curious about the scene in front of him.

It wasn't like there was anything _wrong _with Guthrie taking a nap at seven-thirty on a Saturday evening. They lived on a ranch, after all. The days could be long and the work exhausting at times.

Except… Guthrie _never _napped. Like Evan, he was a high-energy kid who fought against naps even back when he was of napping age. One of Evan's most vivid memories of his mother-he sometimes thought it might have even happened on the last day of her life-was coming home from school with Daniel to find their mom up in their room. Ford was sleeping in his bed. Baby Guthrie, though, was wide-awake, sitting in his mother's lap while she was singing lullabies to him. Evan remembered she'd looked right at him, her face harried, and said _"Evan, your baby brother is exactly like you. He won't go to sleep for anything!"_

Adam and Brian eventually gave up trying to get Guthrie to take a nap, especially after Ford was in school all day and not around to keep Guthrie company. And they gave up trying to get him to go to bed early, as well. Guthrie usually fell asleep while his brothers were singing, but sometimes he stayed up until ten, when everyone went to bed. After he outgrew his crib, he slept on a pallet in Adam and Brian's room, but when he was eight he decided he wanted his "own room" and moved down to the sofa bed under the stairs in the living room. After that, he never went to bed earlier than the rest of the family, since the rest of the family was in "his" bedroom.

The _only _time Evan could remember Guthrie falling asleep this early was when he was sick. Like when that contaminated water in the creek had poisoned him…

Evan eyed his little brother carefully. He didn't look sick, not really, but there was something not quite right. Evan leaned over to check him for a fever. Before he could touch his face, Guthrie sighed in his sleep and turned over, his back now to Evan. His tee shirt pulled up-and Evan could see huge black bruises on his lower back.

"Guthrie!" he yelled, alarmed.

Guthrie jerked awake, his eyes snapping wide open and scared. "What?" he gasped.

"What happened to your back?" Evan demanded.

Guthrie just blinked at him, his eyes still huge and his cheeks flushed.

"What happened to your back?" Evan insisted on knowing, hearing his own voice shrill. He tried to calm himself. "Guthrie, you've got bruises all over your back. What happened?"

Guthrie sighed and flopped back down on his pillow. "Jeez, Evan, what's wrong? I fell. You should know, you were there, remember?"

"That was a week ago, Guthrie!"

"What's going on?" Ford interrupted. Evan turned around to see his blond brother standing behind him. When he had come downstairs, Evan didn't know.

"Look at his back," he urged Ford.

Guthrie yanked his shirt back down before Ford could take a look. "It's just some bruises," he insisted. His eyelids were heavy, now that the fear was gone, and he pulled up the sheet and blanket and curled on his side. "I'm sleepy."

"You're sleepy?" Ford sounded as shocked as Evan had been. "Guthrie, you _never _go to bed this early. Not unless-are you sick?" He reached down and placed his hand on Guthrie's forehead.

Their youngest brother shoved it away. "I'm not sick. Sheesh, a guy can't even go to bed early without-"

"You're awfully warm," Ford worried.

"You think he's got a fever?" Evan asked.

"Yeah, maybe." Ford stepped away. "I'll get the thermometer. Do you know where it is?"

"Medicine cabinet upstairs, maybe. I don't know. Who was the last one sick?"

"I'm not sick!" Guthrie whined. And then Evan knew he _was_ sick, because Guthrie only used that tone when something was wrong. It didn't make sense that those black bruises could be from a week ago. Shouldn't they be healing by now? Changing colors?

Ford sat down on the edge of the bed and patted Guthrie's shoulder. "Hey," he said soothingly, "It's okay. Maybe you just picked up a bug or something. Why don't you go upstairs and sleep in our room tonight? Get your pajamas on and I'll get you some aspirin. And do you want something to drink?"

Guthrie unsealed his eyes and looked up at Ford hopefully. "Hot chocolate?"

Not for the first time, Evan envied Ford the way he could calm down a situation. "Hey, Guthrie," he said, taking a leaf from Ford and making his voice as gentle as possible. "Can you show Ford your back? Please? I'm not ragging on you, I'm just a little worried."

"I guess." Guthrie heaved a put-upon sigh and sat up in bed, pulling up his shirt. Evan saw him wince.

Ford must have noticed, too. His eyes grew larger as he took in the black contusions marring the smooth skin of their little brother's back. He ran light fingers over the swelling. "Does it hurt?"

Guthrie twisted back around and stared at him like he was an idiot. "Yeah, duh, it hurts!"

Ford laughed. "Okay, I guess that was a stupid question." He gave Guthrie a little hug. "Go on upstairs and I'll make your hot chocolate."

Guthrie regarded them suspiciously. "Whose bed do I sleep in?"

"Mine," Evan answered quickly. "I'll sleep in the sleeping bag on the floor. Or, heck, Brian probably won't come home until tomorrow, maybe I'll sleep down here." _'The better to catch Adam and Hannah when they get home,' _he silently added.

Guthrie pulled himself out of the bed. He seemed to have some trouble getting his feet under him, but regained his balance before either of his older brothers could help him. "I want marshmallows on my hot chocolate, okay?"

"Sure. I think there's some in the pantry," Ford answered, and Evan had to wonder how he knew that?

Guthrie seemed to take a long time on the stairs. Evan started up to help him but Ford caught his arm and shook his head. When Guthrie had finally disappeared into their bedroom, Ford said, "He's really hot, Evan. And I don't like the look of those bruises. Crane said he wasn't hardly bruised at all when he checked him after he fell."

Evan swallowed down the unaccustomed feeling of worry. "You think we should call that place Daniel is playing at? Hannah left the number in the kitchen. Or maybe we should just call Doc Meade?"

Ford shrugged and looked as helpless as Evan felt. They might be older than Guthrie but they were numbers five and six in a big family. There was always someone older than _them_ around to make decisions when someone was sick.

One of them needed to do _something_ but Evan couldn't figure out what exactly to do. Guthrie was walking and talking and insisting he was fine; calling out Doc Meade on a Saturday night would be expensive, even though their family doctor would no doubt come right over.

Ford rubbed his forehead. "I don't think…you don't think it's that serious, do you? I hate to bother Hannah and Adam; they were really looking forward to going out tonight. And you know, if they come rushing back here, Daniel and Crane and Brian are going to know about it too…"

"And Daniel is nervous enough about this gig," Evan finished for him. He hesitated. He could tell Ford was worried, too, about doing the wrong thing. "Maybe, we should just keep an eye on him. Take his temperature and give him some aspirin and who knows, he may be fine before everyone gets home." Evan tried desperately to believe that, and to convince Ford.

He must have succeeded at the latter, because his younger brother nodded and looked relieved. "I'll go find the thermometer and the aspirin. You get the hot chocolate duty. And Evan, try not to let the milk boil over this time."

Evan made a face. "Hey, you promised him marshmallows! Do we have any?"

"I think there were some left over from that sweet potato casserole Hannah made on Sunday. Check the pantry."

7Bf7B

Guthrie fell asleep before even finishing his hot chocolate-with marshmallows; Evan had found them back behind the mason jars of pickles. Ford announced unhappily that his temperature was one-o-one. But Guthrie took the aspirin and then seemed to be sleeping peacefully, so Evan and Ford decided not to push the panic button.

Eventually, Ford fell asleep too, his English report forgotten on the desk. Evan couldn't sleep though. As much as he tried to tell himself everything was fine, something inside him was telling him it _wasn't_ fine.

He gave up trying to sleep and went downstairs. It was well after midnight and Evan hoped Adam and Hannah, at least, would be home soon. Daniel wouldn't come in until later, after the band had broken down their equipment. Evan had helped do that before, and he knew how long it could take. Crane would probably stay and help. And Brian, well, knowing Big Brother, he'd have found himself a lady friend for the night and they probably wouldn't see him until after breakfast.

Evan would have welcomed _any _of them home to take the worry off his shoulders, but he was really hoping for Hannah and Adam. For most of Evan's life Adam had been the one who handled emergencies. And, although she hadn't even been in the family a year, Hannah was trained in first aid and emergency procedure and besides, sometimes it was like she'd always been there.

Evan was sitting up on the sofa in the darkened living room when lights from an approaching vehicle swept the room. He sighed in relief. _Someone _was here to take over.

_To Be Continued_


	4. Chapter 4

_Author's Notes: Sorry this update took so long. I moved from the hotel into my new apartment and then work went nuts. Again, thanks for all the comments. I hope I've responded to them all!_

_Thanks to May for the beta._

* * *

_Chapter 4: Four Steps Up, One Step Over_

None of the McFadden family got much rest that night.

Around three in the morning, about an hour after Daniel and Crane got home from Sonora, Guthrie's temperature spiked again and he started vomiting. Worried, Hannah tried to have Guthrie move into the master bedroom with her and Adam, but she was outvoted. Although Evan had been a nervous wreck earlier that evening, he and Ford insisted that they could take care of Guthrie, and Hannah and Adam should just get some sleep. But Guthrie was so feverish and so miserable that they ended up working in shifts. About four, Adam called their family doctor, Doc Meade.

"He says put him in a bathtub full of cool water, and keep trying to get liquids down him," he reported, putting down the phone.

Although Hannah had thought of the cool bath earlier, she had avoided it because it was so cold anyway and Guthrie kept shaking with violent chills. But now Evan ran to the bathroom to fill the tub while she and Adam took Guthrie's pajamas off. Crane had given up trying to sleep and he was standing in the door, an exhausted and half-asleep Daniel behind him, when he said, "What the _hell _happened to his back?"

Hannah saw the deep bruising on Guthrie's lower back and caught her breath. "Where did those come from?"

Ford looked ashamed. "We forgot to tell you."

"What? What happened?" Adam demanded.

"No, nothing happened," Ford inserted quickly. "We just saw them tonight. Guthrie said they were from the fall last week."

Guthrie seemed to be fading in and out, but he nodded his head at Ford's words.

"That's impossible!" Crane said. "He didn't look bruised at all afterwards."

"If they were deep bruises, they could have taken a while to come out," Hannah said. She ran light fingers over the bruises. "Why didn't you say anything?" she asked Guthrie, her worry increasing when she saw his glazed eyes.

Before Guthrie could respond, Evan came down the hall. "The bath is ready."

"No…" Guthrie protested.

"Sorry, Guthrie. But it'll make you feel better," Adam soothed, picking up the youngest McFadden and carrying him into the bathroom.

Hannah had to harden her heart against the panicked cries coming from the bathroom.

**7BfSB**

Hannah lay in bed and watched the morning sun cast rainbows of light through the sun catcher hanging in the window.

Guthrie and Ford had surprised her with the sun catcher at Christmas a few weeks before. Delicately engraved silver stars-each with its own crystal in the center-cascaded from a silver sun, with a large crystal hanging in the middle. It was beautiful and obviously expensive. She had to wonder where they had bought it-she hadn't seen anything like it in Murphys-and how they paid for it.

Then she remembered Ford had been going to school early and coming home late. He had told the family he was tutoring some kids before the end of semester exams. And Guthrie had done his chores for him, morning and evening, without a word of complaint. When she realized they had done that for her, to buy her a present, tears had sprung to her eyes. Adam had hung it in the window, where the morning sun caught it and sent prisms of dancing light around the bedroom walls.

The cool bath the night before had had the desired effect of lowering Guthrie's temperature. Once he was dried off, dressed in clean pajamas and given some more Tylenol, the youngest McFadden had slept well enough. Finally the whole household had managed to get some rest through what night had remained.

When the alarm started pealing that Sunday morning, Hannah almost burst into tears. It felt like she had had no sleep. Adam reached out and turned off the annoying noise, his eyes not even opening. "Adam," she murmured, "We have to get up."

There was a light knock on the door and Brian stuck his head in. "Hey. I hear it was a bad night."

"You could say that," Adam muttered, still sounding more asleep than awake. "I'll get up-"

"Neither one of you worry about it," Brian inserted. "Crane and Dan'l and I can do the chores, and God'll forgive us for missing one Sunday at church. I checked on Guthrie and he's sound asleep. So are Evan and Ford, for that matter. Just get some more sleep."

Hannah and Adam took him at his word and now, as she lay awake, she could tell by the light it was mid morning. Probably the latest she had gotten up since she'd married Adam and come to live here with him and his brothers.

Adam still slept beside her, snoring softly. Giving him a light kiss, she quietly eased out of bed and winced as the cold floorboards assaulted her feet. She dressed quickly, choosing jeans and a warm sweater, heavy socks and tennis shoes instead of her boots.

On her way downstairs, she detoured by Evan and Ford's room and cracked open the door. Guthrie was still sound asleep, curled up in Evan's arms. Evan was asleep as well, half sitting, half lying on the bed. On the top bunk, the only part of Ford visible was his blond hair, sticking out from under the covers. Easing the door closed, she headed downstairs.

The kitchen was warm and smelled of fresh coffee and food. Brian was manning the stove. Dressed in his old apron and armed with a long wooden spoon in one hand and a spatula in the other, he was flipping pancakes onto a platter. Daniel was hanging over the coffee pot as if it couldn't be finished perking fast enough, and a heavy-eyed Crane was just placing a plate of bacon on the table. They all looked up when she came into the room.

"Good morning, again," Brian greeted her. "You could have slept in some more. We've got everything handled."

"If, by handled, you mean Brian's biscuits are hard enough to break your teeth," Daniel muttered, pouring steaming coffee from the pot.

"You ate those biscuits for ten years and they never killed you," Brian said, pulling the juice out of the refrigerator.

"I can't beat Brian's pancakes," Hannah said with a smile. It was true, too. Brian's brothers might tell horror stories of his cooking, but some things he cooked extremely well. And, as he often pointed out, nobody had died of starvation eating his cooking.

"Did you look in on Guthrie?" Crane asked in a gravelly tone.

"He's still asleep," Hannah replied, burying her nose in the mug of coffee.

"He's awake now," Ford said, coming into the kitchen and guiding a groggy-looking Guthrie in front of him. Evan trailed him, yawning. Evan and Ford were dressed but their hair looked like it had never met a brush or comb, while Guthrie was still in his pajamas, albeit with thick socks on his feet and wearing a lurid plaid robe that Hannah had never seen before.

"How're you feeling, shrimp?" Brian greeted their youngest. "Hear you had an exciting night." Hannah noted the way Brian tousled Guthrie's hair, then slid his hand down to check forehead and cheek. Brian frowned. "You're still pretty warm. Did you take his temp?" he asked Evan and Ford.

"We couldn't find the thermometer," Ford said, making sure Guthrie was in his chair before sliding into his own.

"I feel okay," Guthrie piped up. "I'm hungry."

"Well, that's a good sign," Hannah said, feeling cheered up. Guthrie had been a little off his feed lately; she should have realized he was getting sick with something. She was still learning them, these men, her brothers, and it wasn't as if they were sick all that often. Injuries yes, sickness no. The McFadden's seemed to hail from sturdy stock.

Adam walked into the kitchen then, seemingly surprised he was the last one up. He leaned over and kissed Hannah, then rested his hand on Guthrie's shoulder. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm okay," Guthrie claimed. "Be better if I wasn't _starving to death!"_

"I'm not sure flapjacks are such a good idea," Adam cautioned. He always called pancakes "flapjacks". Hannah didn't know why. None of his brothers called them that, although sometimes they would call them "hotcakes".

"Worry not, Big Brother," Brian teased, putting a platter full of pancakes in the middle of the table. "I've got something special for Guthrie." He pulled a plate from the warm spot on back of the stove, and sat it down in front of the youngest McFadden. "There you go, Guthrie. Poached egg on toast. Just the way Mama used to make it when one of us was sick."

Guthrie looked up from studying his breakfast curiously. "She did?" he asked shyly. "You used to make Cream of Wheat when I was sick."

That elicited groans from around the table. "Lumpiest stuff I've ever seen," Evan muttered, filling his mouth with pancakes.

"You ate it," Brian fired back.

"'Course we did," Daniel said. "You put brown sugar _and _maple syrup in it. Who was going to turn that down?" He glanced over at Guthrie, who was poking the egg with his fork. "Forgot about Mama's poached eggs," Daniel added quietly.

There was a brief silence around the table. Everyone was staring at Guthrie's plate and trying to look like they weren't staring at Guthrie's plate. Guthrie finally stopped playing with his food and took a mouthful of toast and egg. "Good," he said, words muffled.

Hannah met Adam's eyes briefly before he looked away. Clearing his throat, he started talking about things that needed to be taken care of that day. His brothers listened to him; occasionally someone would nod in response. There was little of the banter and talking over each other that usually occurred during a meal. Hannah could only imagine they were all as tired as she was.

She kept an eye on Guthrie. He ate half the poached egg before he slowed down and started toying with the food, shoving a bite of egg under the toast. Brian must have been watching as well. He removed the plate and placed a glass of sparkling liquid and ice in front of Guthrie. "There you go," he said cheerfully. "Ginger ale. Best thing on earth for a touchy stomach."

"Ginger ale!" Evan said to Ford. "We should have given him that last night instead of hot chocolate."

Given the hot chocolate had made a rather violent reappearance at about three a.m., Hannah tended to agree with him.

"I didn't know we had any," Ford admitted, looking ashamed, as if he thought he had failed somehow.

Hannah opened her mouth to say something, she didn't know what, but anything to take that look off Ford's face, but Adam pre-empted her. "You two did fine, Ford. You said he was shivering, and I would have given him something hot, too. Besides," he grinned at Brian, who was finally settling down to eat. "Brian hides the ginger ale for mornings when he needs it."

Laughter filled the kitchen.

**7Bf7B**

The day went on rather quietly. Brian, Adam and Evan all disappeared to the barn to attend to chores. Crane worked on the books while Hannah clipped coupons from the Sunday paper to help with the week's shopping. Later in the afternoon, Crane and Daniel sat by the roaring fireplace, working on a song together.

Ford and Guthrie had both disappeared upstairs, supposedly to do homework. When Hannah checked on them later, Guthrie was sound asleep in Evan's bed and a heavy-eyed Ford was reading with one eye on the book and one eye on his brother. He put down the book when he saw Hannah peeking in the door. "I gave him some more aspirin," he whispered. "He felt really hot again. Is Doc Meade coming by today?"

Hannah shook her head. She pulled the thermometer out of her pocket; she'd found it in the laundry room, of all places, and made a mental note to buy an additional one the next time she was in town. She hesitated, deciding not to wake Guthrie to take his temperature. "He told Adam he had to go out of town today. Said to bring Guthrie into his office tomorrow morning." She studied Ford carefully, he looked almost as bad as Guthrie and she knew he hadn't had much sleep the night before. "Why don't you take a nap?" she suggested. "You don't need to come down with the same thing he has."

Ford nodded. "I was falling asleep reading," he admitted. He looked at his younger brother again. "He's okay, isn't he? I mean it's just a bug, or something, right?"

"Of course," Hannah said soothingly. "He'll probably feel better by supper time."

Unfortunately, by supper it was obvious Guthrie was actually feeling worse. He played with his meatloaf rather than eating it. Everyone tried to look like they weren't watching him scraping his fork idly through the mashed potatoes. Finally, without even looking at the Dutch apple pie (his favorite) that Hannah had prepared for dessert, he pushed away from the table and announced quietly he wasn't hungry and could he just go back upstairs?

"What if I fix you some soup?" Hannah coaxed.

"Or maybe a milkshake?" Adam offered.

Guthrie's pale skin took on a waxy green tinge and he shook his head, swallowing hard. "No, thank you."

Adam didn't bother asking him how he felt, since it was obvious. "OK," he surrendered. "Go get some sleep. We'll take you into see Doc Meade tomorrow morning."

One thing Hannah had noticed in her time at the ranch was that the McFadden men almost universally hated doctors. When Guthrie didn't protest that he was fine, that he didn't need to see the doctor, just nodded his head and stood up, it told her just how badly he felt.

Guthrie took a step, then swayed and grabbed the back of Daniel's chair.

"Guthrie!" Daniel whipped around and caught his brother in his arms before he could fall. The middle McFadden's eyes grew wide. "Adam, he's really hot."

Hannah stood up, but Adam got there before her, laying his big hand gently on Guthrie's forehead. Her husband's eyes met hers. "Did you find the thermometer?"

"It's in our room," Ford volunteered, leaping up.

Crane stood up, too. "I think he'd better sleep in our room tonight," he said to Adam, his voice very calm. "Just in case. Evan and Ford need to get some sleep."

Adam looked down at Guthrie. "That okay with you?"

"I don't care," Guthrie said, rubbing his forehead. "I just want to go to bed."

Given that it wasn't even seven o'clock, Hannah was worried, and, judging from the expressions worn by her various brothers-in-law, they were, too.

"You think you can make it up the stairs? Or do you need a piggy-back ride?"

It was almost the same comment Evan had made a week before, but this time the answer was different. "A ride," Guthrie almost whispered.

Adam looked surprised, but he boosted Guthrie onto his back. "Been awhile since I did this," he said lightly. "Ford, go up and find that thermometer, okay?"

Ford turned and ran from the room.

Nobody said anything else until Adam, with Guthrie on his back, disappeared up the stairs. Then Evan turned on Crane. "He needs to stay with us," he insisted. "What if he has something catching? Ford and I've already been exposed, you and Daniel haven't."

"Evan, he's been downstairs with us all through supper," Crane pointed out. "And we were all in and out of the room last night. But, Daniel, maybe you'd better sleep in their room, too. You've got school tomorrow."

"You'll need some help, if tonight is anything like last night was," Hannah said.

"If I need help, I'll yell," Crane promised.

**7Bf7B**

The thermometer revealed Guthrie's temperature to be above one-o-two. High enough to be worrisome, but it went down again thirty minutes after some more Tylenol. And there was no repeat of the previous night's illness. Once tucked into Daniel's bed, Guthrie fell asleep and slept the whole night through.

Hannah didn't. Her sleep was restless, and she got up several times during the night to trek to Crane's room and check on Guthrie. When the alarm started ringing in the morning, she again felt like she hadn't closed her eyes at all.

Monday morning was the usual rush of showers and breakfast and the last minute realizations that homework was missing. All in all, a normal Monday except that Guthrie wasn't part of the mass exodus. He slept through Daniel, Evan and Ford heading off to school and the others getting up for chores. Hannah called Doctor Meade's office as soon as eight o'clock rolled around and was told to go ahead and bring Guthrie in any time and they'd work him in.

Adam and Brian had already committed themselves to going over to the Barrett's to help Tom with some repairs to his house that couldn't wait until warmer weather. Adam looked torn, but he relaxed when Crane volunteered to go with Hannah and Guthrie to the doctor.

Guthrie was grumpy but got up when roused and got himself dressed. His fever was lower this morning and he looked a little better. He refused any breakfast though, and wouldn't even drink any juice. His continuing lack of appetite worried Hannah almost more than the stubborn elevated temperature did.

They were at the office by nine but it was almost noon before the doctor could see them. Guthrie dozed in the waiting room, his head resting on Crane's shoulder. Crane leafed through magazines, obviously not really paying them much attention. Trying not to worry, Hannah read two or three _Ladies Home Journals_ intently, concentrating on articles such as "Can this Marriage Be Saved: My Husband Loves His Job More than Me" and "Turn Your Kitchen Into a Whimsical Beach Cottage!" When she realized she was on her third reading of "Fanciful Fruity Feasts!" she slammed the magazine shut. She launched out of her chair, not exactly sure what she was going to do, but then the nurse called Guthrie's name and she and Crane guided the sleepy boy into the examining room.

Dr. Meade came bustling into the room. "So you're not feeling any better, hmm, Guthrie?"

"No, sir," Guthrie admitted.

"His temperature keeps spiking past one hundred two, and he hasn't eaten much," Hannah volunteered. "And these bruises on his back-"

"No more vomiting, though?" the doctor asked, looking at Guthrie's back without much interest. At least it seemed that way to Hannah.

"No vomiting, not since Saturday night, but then he hasn't eaten much, either," Crane stated quietly.

Doctor Meade sat down on the rolling stool and scribbled something on a prescription pad. "Probably just a virus, like I told Adam on the phone. One kid in the class gets it, and everybody else does too. Rest and fluids. The BRAT diet, I'm sure you know it." He handed the prescription to Crane. "This is phenagren if the nausea should come back. It'll make him sleepy, which is all to the good." He stood up, preparing to leave. "Tylenol and cool sponge baths for the fever, and keep him home from school until, oh, let's say Wednesday-no, Thursday. Let's try to keep it from sweeping through the whole sixth grade."

"That's _it?" _Hannah exclaimed.

Meade stopped with his hand on the door. "Well, what else do you want me to do, Mrs. McFadden? I realize you're rather new at this whole _mother_ job, but trust me, I know a virus when I see one. And really, all you can do is keep him comfortable as possible and wait out the symptoms."

His condescending tone infuriated her. Biting her lip, Hannah counted to ten. Twice. Once in French.

"What about the bruises?" Crane asked quickly, obviously afraid Hannah was going to blow up at the doctor.

Meade shrugged. "They look like normal bruises to me. You said he fell out of the hayloft last week. Be grateful it wasn't more than bruises." He grinned at Crane. "I seem to remember you falling out of that hayloft when you were Guthrie's age. Broke your arm, correct?"

"Actually, that was Evan," Crane said politely. "I was seven when I fell out of the loft, and I broke my foot."

"Oh, of course." The doctor laughed. "There are so many of you boys, I do get confused from time to time." He opened the door to leave. Catching sight of Hannah, he added, "I'm quite sure he'll be feeling better in a day or two, Mrs. McFadden. But if not, I'm only a phone call away." He closed the door firmly behind himself.

Hannah was so angry she couldn't see straight. She'd never really liked Dr. Meade and his habit of talking down to her as if she wasn't any older than Guthrie was really annoying.

Crane snorted. "He doesn't remember about my foot because he wasn't our doctor then." He stood up, holding on to Guthrie until the boy was steady on his feet.

Guthrie didn't say anything, just seemed happy to be out of the doctor's office and back in the truck. He leaned against Hannah and shut his eyes.

Crane started the vehicle, saying, "We can run by the drugstore and get this prescription filled. Do we need anything else in town?"

"Ginger ale," Guthrie said in a small voice.

Crane smiled. "Ginger ale it is. Do you want any ice cream or anything?"

Hannah knew Guthrie loved ice cream, so her heart sank when he just shook his head. She couldn't help thinking there was something more wrong than just a virus, but she wasn't a doctor. Thinking back to what Crane had said, she frowned. "What do you mean he wasn't your doctor when you broke your foot? I thought Adam told me Dr. Meade had delivered all of you."

Crane shot her a look. "Well, he delivered Adam, and Brian, and me. Not any of the rest of them. Dr. Meyer-he's the other doctor in town-he took over after I was born."

Hannah glanced down and noticed Guthrie seemed to be asleep, leaning against her. She stroked his hair.

"I always liked Dr. Meyer," Crane said. "He was our doctor well, from when I was little until after Mama and Daddy died. Mama didn't like Doctor Meade. But after they died, he offered to take us on as patients and let us run an account. You think money is tight now, you can't imagine how it was back then. He'd make house calls, and a lot of time just charged us half of the normal cost. Still does, actually. He samples us the medications, too."

Hannah knew "sampling" was when a doctor provided his patients with free medications that drug reps gave him. She'd heard from Adam how money was so very scarce after their parents died and realized Dr. Meade's offer was generous. "Why didn't your mother like him?"

Crane hesitated, and then said, "You know, I really don't know. He does tend to talk down to women-you saw that today-and my mother wasn't the kind to take that well. I know she saw him while she was pregnant with Daniel, but before he was born she changed to Dr. Meyer. Changed all of us, too. I think my dad felt conflicted about it. He was pretty good friends with Doc Meade's son, Walt Junior, and even after he moved away Daddy and the doc would go fishing together. Deer hunting, sometimes. I remember my parents talking-well, arguing, really, about it once. But Mama had her mind made up and that was that."

"Adam never told me that," Hannah murmured.

Crane shrugged. "I'm not even sure he remembers. I don't know why I do, to be honest with you. Dr. Meyer delivered everyone from Daniel down to Guthrie." He nodded his head at his sleeping brother. "We didn't see Dr. Meade for a long time. But he came to the funeral-" Hannah had noticed that the McFadden men always referred to their parents' funeral that way, The Funeral, as if there was only one such event in their lives. "-And he told Adam he could help us out, give us a break on medical bills. Adam couldn't see anything wrong with it, so we switched back to him." Crane sighed. "I've never liked him that much, but I think it's just because I remember Mama being so set against him. He's been a pretty good doctor for us. Guthrie and Ford, especially, were sick a lot when they were younger, and I don't know how we would have managed without him."

Guthrie stirred then, and lifted his head, blinking owlishly in the winter sunlight. "I don't feel good."

"Do you feel like you're going to be sick again?" Hannah asked as Crane wheeled the truck to the curb.

Guthrie didn't answer her; he just stared ahead, not blinking. Then his eyes rolled back so only the whites were showing. His body straightened. Then he began jerking wildly.

_"Guthrie!" _Crane screamed.

Hannah tried desperately to keep Guthrie's rigid body from sliding into the wheel well. "He's having a seizure!" She told Crane needlessly. She looked at her watch, remembering like a dream one of her first aid instructors talking about "Psychological time lapse" when someone was having a seizure, how important it was to time it accurately because seconds could feel like minutes and minutes could feel like hours. She smelled the sharp odor of urine and realized Guthrie had lost control of his bladder.

"We need to…" Her voice was high, anxious. "Go back to Dr. Meade's office?"

"No!" Crane interrupted. "No." He looked around. "Meyer's office is closer."

Crane started the truck up again and swerved back into the road, heading for the doctor's office. He winced as one of Guthrie's twitching legs kicked him. "Hang on, little brother, we're going to get you to some help."

Hannah could hear the panic in his tone and felt the same way. She clung to her first aid training, trying not to think that this was Guthrie, her own family that was affected. "Just keep breathing, baby, just keep breathing," she prayed.

_'Please, Guthrie, please wake up and tell me you're not a baby. Please!'_

Guthrie kept seizing.

**7Bf7B**

Hannah had feared Dr. Meyer's office would be closed for lunch. But the door was unlocked when she swung it wide open. Crane barged in after her, carrying Guthrie, who hadn't stopped jerking since the seizure began.

The receptionist looked up, and then was on her feet immediately and coming toward them. "This way," she said, opening the door back into the office proper and leading them to an examination room. "Put him on the table." She hurried out of the room and another woman, whom Hannah assumed to be Dr. Meyer's nurse, came in.

"How long has he been seizing?" she asked, calmly, reaching for oxygen tubing and a mask, settling it over Guthrie's nose and mouth.

Hannah looked at her watch and calculated. "Seven minutes, fifteen seconds," she said. She could hear her first aid instructor in her mind again, saying _"Sustained seizures in excess of five minutes are referred to as status epilepticus, and can cause brain damage."_

_'Not Guthrie!'_

The doctor entered the room. He went straight to Guthrie's side.

"Over seven and a half minutes, now," the nurse told him. "He's feverish."

"He's been sick for a couple of days," Hannah heard herself say.

Dr. Meyer looked up and met her eyes. "What's been going on?"

As if in a dream, Hannah heard her own voice tripping over Crane's as they tried to fill the doctor in on everything that had happened in the last week, including Guthrie's fall from the hayloft. "We should have brought him in then," Crane said brokenly. "But he didn't have any lumps on his head. And Dr. Meade said it was just a virus."

"When did he see Dr. Meade?"

"Just…just a half hour or so ago," Hannah managed. "We were heading for the pharmacy when Guthrie-when the seizure started."

"Did Meade give him anything?" Meyer asked sharply.

Crane shook his head. "No. He gave us a prescription, something for nausea, but we hadn't got it filled yet." He stared at his brother. "You've got to do something!"

"The two of you need to leave."

"What? No!" Crane started forward, but Hannah grabbed his arm. She hated leaving Guthrie like this, but she realized they were getting in the way. Crane resisted moving, until the nurse came over and gently pushed them both out of the examining room.

The receptionist was in the hall. "I'll take you to Doctor's office. You'll be more comfortable there than out in the waiting room."

Dr. Meyer's office was warm and welcoming, even with the ponderous collection of books and framed degrees. Crane sank down in one of the leather chairs, dropping his head into his hands. Hannah sat next to him, unable to think of anything to say. She wanted Adam to be here, to put his arms around her and tell her everything would be fine. To comfort Crane who was obviously distressed. But she didn't know the Barrett's number off the top of her head, and anyway, she couldn't think of how to tell Adam his baby brother had just had a seven minute seizure.

It seemed like hours, but of course it wasn't, when Dr. Meyer came into his office. He sat down, not behind the desk, but in another chair next to Crane and Hannah. "I gave him an IV of Valium," he said gently. "I couldn't get the seizure stopped any other way. He's not seizing now, but he's a very sick boy. He needs to be in a hospital. I'd recommend Sonora Regional. They have the best pediatric unit around." He paused. "But there's a problem."

"What?" Crane asked sharply. "If it's money, we-"

"No, nothing like that. It's that Dr Meade doesn't have admitting privileges at Sonora anymore. When I call him, he's going to insist Guthrie go to County."

Hannah opened her mouth, but before she could speak, Crane did. "Don't call him. You're Guthrie's doctor now. If he needs to go to Sonora, then that's where he goes."

The doctor's expression softened. "Crane, I know Adam is still Guthrie's legal guardian-"

"Adam isn't here," Crane fired back. "I am." He gestured to Hannah. "_She_ is. I'm Guthrie's brother. She's Adam's wife. I have _de facto _power of guardianship and I'm exercising it. Call an ambulance, because Guthrie is going to Sonora."

_To Be Continued_


	5. Chapter 5

_**Five: One Step Back, Three Steps Down**_

In this, his senior year of high school, Daniel was done with classes at two p.m., an hour and forty-five minutes ahead of Evan and Ford. Since football season was over and soccer season hadn't started yet, he headed home and worked the ranch or did maintenance on the ranch equipment. He was hardly the only student getting out early; this was so common in the rural area that a bus even ran at two.

In a few weeks, when the semesters changed, Daniel would be getting out even earlier, before noon. This had taken some reasoning with Adam and Brian, since it meant Daniel wasn't even considering college prep courses anymore. When their parents had been killed, Adam had been weeks away from leaving for college and ultimately even medical school, with a full scholarship. He'd given it up to keep the family together. And Brian had cut his senior year down to the bare minimum to graduate in order to be home to help Adam, since back then Ford was only in school a half day and Guthrie, at two, wasn't in school at all.

One would think that would make them _more _understanding about one of their brothers not going the college route, but it didn't. Daniel thought sometimes that Adam must have made some kind of vow over their parents' graves that everyone else in the family was going to go to college.

Daniel didn't see any reason at all to go to college; he knew what he wanted to do and be-a musician, a songwriter-and he didn't see any way college was going to help him on that path. Evan, their aspiring rodeo star, felt the same way. But when, earlier in the year, Evan had announced his plans of quitting high school to go on the rodeo circuit, Adam had had what was colloquially known as "a cow".

So, Evan was still in high school and he'd even taken the PSAT. Daniel had taken the SAT in November, mostly because he worried about Adam's blood pressure. Ironically, the announcement that he was cutting his day down to core courses had actually seemed to piss Brian off more than Adam, even though Daniel was only doing what Brian had done ten years before.

_"I know you want a music career!" Brian yelled, throwing up his hands. "But where does it say you can't go to college too?"_

_"Why should I?" Daniel fired back. "It'd be a waste of my time and our money."_

_Adam was just sitting there, holding his head like he had the worst headache. "You let us worry about the money."_

_"Adam-" Daniel sighed. He looked around the table, looking for support and thinking, not for the first time, that bringing up subjects like this at the dinner table was not the greatest timing._

_Evan was sympathetic, but Evan wasn't going to say a word. He was just out of the doghouse after the whole rodeo debacle. _

_Ford wanted to go to college, so he wasn't going to say anything. And Guthrie just kept eating his dinner. That the youngest was staying out of it was no surprise. Both Brian and Adam had come down on him hard for skipping school and going to see Brian in jail. _

_That left Crane and Hannah. Crane looked conflicted. He knew Daniel better than anyone, knew his dreams, but Crane had gone to college._

_Oddly enough, it was the McFadden Daniel considered least likely to come to his aid that did so. Hannah cleared her throat and said, quietly, "Adam, he is eighteen."_

_Adam shot her a Look. "I know how old he is!"_

_Apparently Crane decided he should weigh in then, too. "Adam, not everybody is cut out to go to college."_

_OK, that was the wrong thing to say. Both Adam and Brian turned on Crane. "You are the last person I'd expect to hear that from!"_

_This was rapidly turning into a family fight. Everyone had stopped eating, even Guthrie, and it looked like they were choosing sides. Daniel didn't want a huge battle in his honor. He said firmly, "I've made up my mind."_

_Brian started to open his mouth, but Adam waved at him to be quiet. His oldest brother's eyes locked with Daniel's. "What if you can't have a music career? Not one like you want. I know you're talented, but a lot of people try and not a lot of people make it. If you went to college, you could…teach music, or something."_

_Daniel almost blew up, but he bit his tongue when he realized Adam wasn't disparaging his talent as much as he was airing his own fears. And Adam wasn't yelling. That made Daniel keep his own tone reasonable._

_"Are you going to fire me from the ranch and kick me out of the house?" He finally replied, making his voice gentle._

_He meant it as a joke, but at least one member of the family didn't take it that way. Guthrie darted up from his seat, eyes huge. "No!"_

_Daniel could have kicked himself. Guthrie was still clinging to Brian and Adam both after their fight over the mountain polo team._

_Adam looked at Guthrie and his face softened. "Of course not," he replied. "Nobody's ever getting kicked out, Guthrie." He took a deep breath and met Daniel's eyes. "I think you're making a mistake," he stated. "And I really hope you change your mind. But you are an adult now, and I have to learn to respect your decisions. So let's compromise: you finish high school and I'll stop harping on college." His eyes drifted from Daniel to Evan and Daniel knew he meant the remark for both of them. _

He finished rearranging his locker and slammed the door, hustling to catch the bus. As he was exiting the front door of the school, he literally ran into Brian. Adam was right behind him.

Brian grabbed his shoulders. "Good. We caught you. Come on." He started following Adam, who didn't even seem to notice Daniel, into the school.

"Wait. What's going on?" Daniel asked, panicked. He knew that look on Adam's face.

He remembered it from ten years ago.

Something was really wrong.

Neither brother said anything, just continued on into the office, Brian towing Daniel along with him. The receptionist looked up from her work, but before she could say anything, Mrs. Harley, the Principal, came out of her office.

"Adam. Brian. This is an unexpected pleasure. I haven't had to call you in for a chat recently." The Principal's voice was full of good humor, but her smile disappeared when she really looked at the two older McFaddens. "Is something wrong?"

"Can you call Evan and Ford in from class?" Adam requested. Just the tremor in his voice sent chills through Daniel.

"Evan's in Civics. Mr. Ross," he blurted out. "Ford…Ford has English this period. Mrs. Taylor."

Mrs. Harley glanced at him, then looked at the receptionist and nodded her head. "Call them in."

The receptionist busied herself with the telephone and Mrs. Harley gestured toward her office. "It might be best if you were to wait in there," she said, her voice too calm.

Daniel wondered if he was the only one remembering that day ten years ago.

_'Crane. Guthrie. Hannah.' _They were the only ones not here, so something had to be wrong with one or more of them. Daniel's heart started pounding so hard he thought it would jump out of his chest. Maybe there had been a car accident. _Another _car accident. He wanted to ask again, to demand to know what had happened, but he couldn't do it. His shaking legs collapsed into a chair in the Principal's office. Brian put a hand on his shoulder, which just managed to scare Daniel even more.

Crane and Evan must have both run all the way from their classrooms; they must have run into each other on the way. They skidded into the room, eyes wide, staring from one brother to another. "What are you guys doing here?" Evan demanded.

"What's wrong?" Ford asked.

"It's probably nothing to really worry about," Adam finally said, although the very tone of his voice said he was already worried. "Guthrie's in the hospital."

"Guthrie!" Both Daniel and Evan exclaimed at the same time, with Ford chiming in a split second later, "Hospital?"

"Dr. Meade put Guthrie in the hospital?" Evan asked, his face pale. "He's that sick?"

Brian held up a hand. "We don't know exactly what all happened. Crane just called. We just wanted to pick the three of you up and head to Sonora."

"Sonora?" Daniel felt a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. "Why Sonora?" County Hospital was where they always went. People only went to Sonora Regional if they were-really bad off.

His parents had died at Sonora Regional.

He saw Brian and Adam exchange a look, and then Brian nodded. Adam cleared his throat. "Guys, there's no easy way to say this. Guthrie had a seizure. Dr. Mayer felt he would be better off in Sonora, they have the better Pediatrics department."

Daniel was filled with fear, and questions. Why was Dr. Mayer deciding where Guthrie should go? Where was Dr. Meade? Why did Guthrie have a seizure? But he didn't ask anything, just declared, "Let's go."

**7Bf7B**

Adam drove the Jeep. It had the cover on it, but it was still cold. Brian sat up front with him, with Daniel wedged in the back with Ford and Evan.

The trip to Sonora seemed to take forever. Occasionally Evan would burst out with a question, but neither Brian nor Adam seemed to know any answers. About the third time Adam repeated, "It's probably nothing to worry about," in that tone that said there was probably _everything_ to worry about, Ford lost it.

"If there's nothing to worry about why is he in the hospital?"

Adam didn't say anything, but his hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly the bones almost looked like they were going to tear through the skin. Brian shot him a worried look, then turned around so he was facing the three younger brothers.

"Look. We're all scared, okay? We don't know what's wrong. But Guthrie's already in the hospital and Crane and Hannah are with him and we'll know more soon. So let's just hang on for a bit, okay?"

Daniel knew better than most that bad things could happen to the people you loved. But somehow, even after Guthrie's misadventures with poachers and poisoned creek water, he had never thought of his baby brother being hospital-sick before.

Sonora Regional Medical Center was much, much larger than Carbon County Hospital. Larger and crowded. Adam drove around and around in the parking lot before he finally found a spot. As they all started walking toward the main entrance, Daniel spotted their old truck a few rows over.

It was parked crooked like whoever had left it there had been in a real hurry.

"Shouldn't we go to the emergency entrance?" Ford asked. It was the first thing he'd said since his outburst in the Jeep.

"Crane said he'd meet us up front," Adam said, rapidly walking through the parking lot.

Big double doors opened onto a massive lobby that stretched up three stories. A huge circular wooden desk, underneath a sign that said, "Information", sat in between the doors and the lobby. Three older women wearing pink jackets manned the desk.

They didn't see Crane anywhere. Adam squared his shoulders and strode toward the desk, his brothers following along behind. Daniel had the crazy thought they must look like ducks following their mother.

"I'm Adam McFadden," Adam said to one of the women. "My brother-"

"Adam!"

Daniel looked up to see Crane racing through the lobby from the bank of elevators in the middle of it. He got to them, breathless. "You got here faster than I thought you would. Did you fly?"

Adam didn't even seem to notice Crane's lame joke. "Where is he? Where's Hannah?"

Crane put his hand on Adam's arm. "They're both upstairs. Pediatrics, on the fifth floor. They haven't told us anything yet, Hannah's in the waiting room up there."

"Is he awake?" Daniel heard himself asking.

Crane looked at him. "He wasn't, when the ambulance got here."

"Ambulance!" Evan exclaimed. "I thought you two brought him here."

Although neither Brian nor Adam had said, Daniel had assumed that, too.

Crane looked around, seeming to notice they were causing a blockage in front of the information desk. He jerked his head and they all followed him toward the elevators. Pushing the button, Crane said, "He had a seizure, guys. He had to be on oxygen. Dr. Mayer called for an ambulance. Hannah rode in with him, and I followed in the truck."

"What were you doing at Dr. Mayer's?" Adam asked, his voice sounding like gravel. "I thought you were taking him to Dr. Meade."

The elevator doors slid open then and they all crowded inside. Crane pushed the button for the fifth floor and then turned and looked only at Adam. "We did. We sat in Meade's waiting room for three hours, Adam. And Meade looked at him for maybe five minutes. Said it was a virus and to keep him out of school for a few days."

"When did he have a seizure?" Brian demanded.

"I'm getting to that," Crane snapped. "We started toward the drugstore. Then-it happened so fast, one second he was talking and then he started having a seizure. And it _wouldn't stop!" _Crane stopped, took a deep, shaky breath. Daniel put his arm around him while Adam just kept looking at him. "It was like it went on forever. Hannah was timing it, and I just thought-Mayer's office was only a few blocks away and I just drove there."

The elevator doors slid open as Adam's shoulders relaxed. He gripped the back of Crane's neck. "You did good," he reassured their shaken brother.

"Adam!" Hannah was waiting on a bench right outside the elevator. She threw herself into her husband's arms. Adam caught her and hugged her tightly.

Seeing the tears and the worry on her face just made Daniel more frightened.

**7Bf7B**

Now they were all waiting in the large, cheerful waiting room. That it was the pediatric wing was obvious by the brightly colored walls and the toys scattered about. One whole long wall from the elevators to the nursing station was a mural in greens and yellows and bright red and blue. Tired of sitting still, Evan and Ford walked along the hallway, talking quietly to each other and pointing out different things on the mural.

They'd been waiting for over three hours. A lady in a pink smock scattered with white and yellow ice-cream cones had come by once, to tell them Guthrie was "stable", whatever that meant, and they were running tests, and that a doctor would be out to talk with them as soon as there was something to tell them. When Adam asked her if Guthrie was awake, she was evasive. "He's in and out," was what she said.

"If he's awake, he's going to be scared," Brian said. "One of us needs to be in there with him." He stood up, like he was going to charge past her, but she put a hand on his arm and stopped him.

Brian was a big guy, and this nurse, or whatever she was, was pretty small, but she managed to stop Brian in his tracks with her voice of authority. "Believe me, I understand how you feel. But you'll just be in the way. Let us help him. He's down in Neuro now, anyway. As soon as he's in his room, you can go back there and be with him."

"Neurology?" Crane questioned. If possible, his face went even paler.

"He had a seizure," she reminded them.

"Just one?" Hannah asked, in a tiny voice. "Has he had any more?"

Daniel stared at her, because he hadn't even thought about that.

The woman's face softened. "No. He's just had the one Dr. Mayer told us about. Try not to worry too much."

There was a silence, then Adam said, "Is there some paperwork, or something, I should be filling out?"

"I already did it," Crane volunteered.

"Oh." Adam looked as if he really, really could use something to do.

The woman left then, and they settled in for a long wait. But it wasn't even another hour minutes before a man stopped at the nurses' station and, when one of the nurses pointed to their group, he headed toward them.

"I'm Dr. Marino," he introduced himself. "One of the doctors working on Guthrie's case."

_One of the doctors,_ Daniel repeated to himself.

Dr. Marino was carrying a clipboard full of forms. He leafed through them, and frowned at something. "Which one of you is the guardian?"

"That would be me," Adam said, standing. "Adam McFadden. Guthrie's brother." He gestured to all of them, including Evan and Ford who had suddenly reappeared. "We're all his brothers." He nodded at Hannah. "Hannah is my wife."

Daniel waited for the doctor to ask about their parents, because people always did, but he didn't. He said, "Who filled out the forms?"

"I did. I'm Crane McFadden."

"You said Guthrie was poisoned with _parathion? _When was this?"

The brothers all looked at each other, because no doubt like Daniel, they hadn't been expecting that question. Adam shook his head. "Um. November. Mid-November. Before Thanksgiving."

"Where was he treated? We can't find any records here. Was it at County?"

"No." Brian answered this time. "It was at home. Our doctor treated him at our house."

Marino's eyes widened. "Dr. Mayer treated parathion poisoning at _home?" _He sounded as if that was the most insane thing he'd ever heard. "Where was the lab work done?"

Adam was getting impatient. "It wasn't Dr. Mayer, it was Dr. Meade. He's our family doctor. And what lab work?"

"How did-Dr. Meade-know it was parathion poisoning? How did he treat it?"

"We had a cow die of it. The cow was drinking from the same stream Guthrie had been playing in earlier that day. The vet did an autopsy and said it was parathion poisoning. It was right after that that Guthrie got sick."

"Wait, wait," Ford interrupted. "Adam, it wasn't like that. Remember? The vet didn't call until after Dr. Meade was already in with Guthrie. He came out and said Guthrie'd been poisoned, and you told him about the calf. And then he said it could be parathion that poisoned Guthrie, too. He'd given him a shot of-"

"-Atropine," Hannah finished.

Adam shrugged. "Okay, I guess you're right. But-"

"Your family doctor carries atropine around when he does house calls?" Marino questioned. "And he just gave Guthrie an injection of it without any lab work?"

Adam ran his hand through his hair. "Yeah. I guess he did. But Guthrie got better-"

"And atropine is the antidote to parathion poisoning," Crane put in.

Daniel wondered how his brother knew that, and then figured he must have learned it in his animal husbandry classes at Davis.

"You're right, it is. But not just one injection. Multiple treatments, over time. With lab work to determine how well it's working." Marino turned away.

"Wait!" Brian and Adam both moved to grab the doctor, but Brian got there first. "Are you saying Guthrie had a seizure because he drank some bad creek water almost two months ago?"

The doctor looked at all of them. "We don't know _why _your brother had a seizure. And right now, that's not our primary concern."

Daniel felt his stomach plummet to his feet.

Adam broke the sudden silence. His face was as white as milk. "Just what is your primary concern, doctor?"

"Maybe you'd all better sit down," Marino said unhappily.

Daniel just then realized all of them, even Hannah, were standing up and crowding the doctor.

"What is wrong with Guthrie?" Daniel had never heard Hannah's voice sound so terrified before.

Marino took a deep breath. "We don't know what caused the seizure," he said again. "He hasn't had another one. But, the lab results that have come back so far indicate he is in renal failure."

It took a minute before Daniel realized what that meant. Renal failure. _"Kidney failure?" _he asked out loud

Marino nodded. "Guthrie's kidneys are failing. And we don't know why-or how to stop it."

_To be continued…_


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Thank you to everyone who continues to comment on this story. Special thanks to May for catching my typos, my sudden changes of tense, and for just making this story so much better!

* * *

_**Six: One Step Up  
**_

Around eight-thirty that night, Crane decided that if he didn't get out of the hospital soon, he was going to literally tear the walls down with his bare hands.

Things were quieting down in the hospital. At eight o'clock, a soft chime and a voice over the PA system had announced visiting hours were over. One of the nurses at the Pediatric desk had come over and asked that at least part of the family go home. For a few minutes things had been pretty tense. They hadn't even been allowed to see Guthrie yet, and no one was going to leave until they did. But the arrival of Dr. Marino, with Dr. Mayer in tow, had sent the nurse scurrying back to her desk while the two doctors sat down with the family and caught them up with what was going on with Guthrie.

_"He's holding his own," was the first thing Dr. Marino said. Whatever the hell that was supposed to mean._

_"He'll be moved into a room in an hour or so," Dr. Mayer added. "I'll make sure you can all see him then. And one of you can spend the night with him. There's a chair that converts into a bed."_

_That was the beginning. Then they got down to the meat of things._

_More lab tests had confirmed that Guthrie was indeed in acute kidney failure. Nobody was sure what was causing it, but the money seemed to be on the parathion poisoning, or maybe a reaction to the atropine, or both._

_"Kidney failure isn't a typical outcome of parathion poisoning," Dr. Mayer made sure to point out._

_"But it happens," Brian said. It wasn't a question._

_"It happens," Mayer admitted. "Parathion can be unpredictable. It's one of the reasons that hospital treatment is recommended."_

_"So why didn't Dr. Meade recommend it?" Adam challenged._

_Mayer looked like he'd like to be anywhere but where he was. He shot a helpless look at the other doctor._

_Marino sighed. "Dr. Meade is a good family practice doctor," he said quietly. "But-he's a bit old-fashioned. Maybe he doesn't always pay attention to the latest research. Atropine is a common remedy for herbicides. He could have felt that his treatment was correct and economical." Even though Marino's voice sounded reasonable, Crane could tell by the look on the doctor's face that he didn't believe a word he was saying._

_"Is there-" Hannah's voice seemed to fail her. She swallowed hard and went on, "Was there anything we could have done-was there something we missed, that maybe if he'd had treatment sooner…"_

_She'd given voice to what Crane was thinking. 'Did we miss something? How could Guthrie have been that sick and none of us noticed?'_

_"No," Marino assured them. "The first symptoms are innocuous. Fatigue. Loss of appetite. Dizziness, maybe."_

_Crane thought of Guthrie falling from the hayloft._

_"-But by the time those appear, the damage has already progressed."_

_But all Crane could think of was those big black bruises, right over Guthrie's kidneys._

_"He just swallowed a little of the water!" Ford burst out suddenly. Evan grasped his shoulder and Daniel stepped closer to both of them._

_"The water? Oh, the creek water?" Marino shook his head. "He didn't have to swallow it. Parathion can be absorbed through the skin."_

_"So the only person who could have done anything differently, anything that might have made a difference, was Walt Meade?" Adam asked._

_"I don't like to criticize another doctor," Mayer said slowly. Then he took a deep breath and went on, "But you're right. Dr. Meade could have made a difference if he had followed established protocols for treating suspected poisonings. I'll be honest with you. I'm reporting him to the State Board for this."_

_Marino made a protesting noise, but didn't say anything. After a silence, Mayer went on, "Guthrie's kidneys aren't destroyed, just damaged. And hopefully the damage can be stopped, and even reversed. We're going to be doing more tests over the next few days, so we can see just how bad the damage is."_

_Brian cleared his throat. "When will we know? I mean, if the damage can be reversed?"_

_"I can't answer that," Marino said quietly. "We're just going to have to take each day as it happens."_

_Nobody said so, but it was pretty obvious Guthrie wouldn't be going home anytime soon._

_Adam finally asked the question that had to be on all their minds. "What if you can't save his kidneys?" His voice was shaking._

_The two doctors exchanged looks. "Look, let's not worry about that right now-" Marino started, but Mayer held up a hand to stop him._

_"If that happens-and we're a long way from that happening now-Guthrie would need dialysis in the short term."_

_"And in the long term?" Crane almost didn't recognize Brian's voice._

_"Well, we might be looking at a transplant," Mayer finally said._

_Oh my God, was all Crane could think.  
_

Crane looked around the waiting room. It wasn't that late, but the stress of the day had taken its toll on his family. Evan and Ford had walked in front of that mural for hours. Now they were both asleep on one of the long sofas, mingled together like tired puppies. Daniel watched over them protectively, his eyes heavy with fatigue. Hannah and Adam sat close together in a chair, drawing strength from each other. Brian had disappeared a few minutes before, not saying anything, just striding down the hall as if demons were at his back.

Crane knew how he felt. Grabbing his jacket from the pile of coats heaped on another chair, he noticed Daniel watching him sleepily. "Think I'm going to take a walk around," Crane told him quietly.

Daniel nodded, starting to move. "I'll come with you-"

"No, don't. You stay here." Crane forced a smile. "I just need some air." He knew Daniel needed something from him, some reassurance, but he just didn't have it in him to say the right thing.

"You sure?" Daniel asked quietly. "I can go with you."

Crane rubbed his brother's head affectionately. "I know. But you need to keep an eye on Five and Six, here," he gestured to the sleeping Evan and Ford. "I-just need a few minutes."

Daniel frowned, but then he eased back down beside Evan and Ford and nodded. "Why don't you try to find Brian? They should be letting us in to see Guthrie any time now."

Crane nodded. Not that he had the slightest idea where his older brother could have gone. He took the elevator to the first floor and exited through the main doors.

The air was cold, but clear. There was no moon but thousands of stars lit up the night sky like diamonds scattered across black velvet. Crane's mother had used to say that stars were pinpricks in the floor of Heaven, letting just a little bit of the beauty and radiance out. He wondered if anyone had ever told Guthrie about that. There were so many things about their parents that Guthrie didn't know, that he couldn't know. Even Ford had some treasured memories of birthday parties and games and nights around the fire singing or dancing.

But Guthrie had no memory of their parents whatsoever. Everything he knew, he had learned from his brothers.

Crane pulled his jacket tightly around himself and looked around. There was a little park beside the hospital, and he headed in that direction, walking down the stone paths until he came to a bridge over a small creek. Then he sat down and stared up at the stars in the moonless night.

After a few minutes, he was aware someone was walking toward him and he recognized Brian even before his brother said, "You following me?"

Crane shook his head. "Just needed some air."

"Yeah," Brian nodded. "It was stuffy in there."

"Yeah, it was," Crane echoed softly. He indicated the bench next to him and Brian sat down. They were both silent for a while.

"I remember the day he was born. Do you?" Crane asked into the quiet. "Mama was so sure he was going to be a girl. I remember thinking I hope she isn't disappointed he's a boy. But then when we went in to see her, she was so happy. She was laughing and cuddling him and said it was a good thing he was a boy, because we didn't have anything pink in the house."

Crane could hear the smile in his brother's voice as he responded, "I think Mama always tried to convince herself it was going to be a girl, every time. Kind of wonder, sometimes, if they'd lived, would they have tried again?"

"A girl with an H name. Well, we got one, just had to wait for Adam to find her."

Brian rubbed his arms as a slight breeze wafted across the creek. "Crane, what's the real reason you took Guthrie to Dr. Mayer's office rather than back to Doc Meade?"

Crane stiffened. "I told you why."

"And that's horse shit. Murphys isn't that big. If you were two blocks from Mayer's office, you couldn't have been more than three blocks from Meade's."

"If I hadn't taken Guthrie to Dr. Mayer, he might be dead right now," Crane fired back.

"You don't know that! Maybe Walt was busy this morning. OK, maybe he was wrong about the poisoning-"

"_Maybe_ he was wrong?" Crane exploded. "Were you listening to the doctors in there? If Meade had followed what is apparently the recommended protocol for treating Guthrie, he'd probably be all right now. Not in a hospital-" He stopped, his voice caught in his throat.

Brian took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "Look, I wasn't trying to criticize you-"

"That would be a first," Crane muttered.

He really didn't know what the problem was between him and Brian. Seemed like they'd been arguing and tussling since they were kids. Crane remembered idolizing Adam when he'd been young, tagging along with him whenever he could, learning from him.

Things were different with Brian. They'd argued over everything from who got to play with the red truck to who got the bigger serving of ice cream after dinner. Crane, from an early age, was a reader, soaking up every book that came his way like a sponge. Brian was an active kid, who didn't have much use for books or even school. Crane remembered his first grade teacher, the first day of school, sighing when she heard his name. I do hope you're more like Adam than Brian, she'd said. Crane had always felt he had to make up for Brian, somehow.

It probably didn't help that Crane, at age six, could out-read and out spell Brian, who was almost four years older. Brian had punched Crane once when the younger brother had offered to help him with his math homework. On the other hand, Brian took to ranch work and athletics like a moth to a flame. He excelled in those areas, whereas Crane had looked at his chores around the ranch as just that, chores, something to be done as quickly as possible so he could go read a good book. And athletics: Crane had always felt like a klutz and was sure everyone was laughing at him behind his back, at least until he shot up in height in high school.

If anything, their relationship worsened when their parents were killed. Crane never minded taking direction from Adam; he flatly refused to take it from Brian. He didn't appreciate the way Brian tried to lord it over him, when he was doing just as much to take care of the family as Brian was. And the fact that Crane almost always agreed with Adam when there was a dispute between the two oldest usually sent Brian racing away: to the barn, to the fields, into town-anywhere away from his brothers.

"You never liked Dr. Meade," Brian said now, his voice sullen.

"No, I didn't," Crane fired back. "And Mama didn't like him either. And now his incompetence may have gotten Guthrie killed!"

He braced himself, hating himself for the words, knowing Brian would react by yelling or striking out…but Brian did neither. The older brother leaned forward, his shoulders shaking, a keening cry tearing from his throat that made the hair rise on the back of Crane's neck. "Brian?" he whispered.

But Brian didn't speak, only harsh sobs tore from his throat.

The anger drained from Crane. He replayed his last words in his head and winced. "I'm sorry," he said, drawing closer to his brother. He wrapped both arms around Brian's heaving shoulders. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. He's going to be fine, Brian."

He could feel Brian's hands coming up and resting on his shoulders. He could barely make out the words, "You don't know that."

"He _has_ to be all right," Crane insisted, his own voice choking.

Alone in the cold dark, Crane held tightly to his brother and knew, no matter what their differences were, that the two of them were united in their love for their family and in their fear of losing their youngest brother.

**7Bf7B**

It was almost an hour later when the two of them slowly made their way back into the hospital.

"Do you think Meade didn't do all the testing and everything because he didn't think we could afford it?" Brian asked suddenly.

Crane stopped in his tracks. He hadn't thought about that. After a minute, he shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe. But that still isn't a good excuse. We've always come up with the money somehow, he knows that. I think it's more likely he just…didn't think. Maybe he doesn't keep up with the latest treatments, the way Dr. Marino said." His voice sounded doubtful to his own ears. "I mean, I learned about parathion poisoning at Davis, but I didn't know about the need for those lab tests and…"

Brian surprised him then, reaching out and gripping his shoulder, pulling him into a hug. "You majored in animal husbandry and business, Crane. Not medicine. This isn't your fault."

"I know," Crane faltered. "I just-"

"The only person at fault here is Meade," Brian growled. "Damn him! I feel like driving to his office in the morning and beating the shit out of him."

Crane opened his mouth to say _Oh, that would be so helpful,_ but then shut up when he realized he wanted to do the exact same thing, had been wanting to do it since Meade had done such a cursory exam on Guthrie earlier that day.

_Guess I'm more like Brian than either of us knew,_ he told himself.

As it happened, neither of them had to drive to Meade's office. When they walked into the hospital lobby, they both saw him. And Daniel. The younger brother stood in front of Meade, arms crossed, almost like he was barring the doctor from the elevators.

Daniel saw them and his face lit up. Dodging around the doctor, he came up to Crane's side and threw an arm around his shoulders. "Guthrie's awake. And we can see him. I was coming to find you two." Crane felt Daniel stiffening as he swung back to look at the doctor. "Only I ran into Meade, here."

It didn't escape Crane's notice that both Brian and Daniel had stopped using the "Doctor" in front of Meade's name and that Brian was no longer using his first name, either. Before he could say anything, though, Meade was talking.

"I understand Guthrie has been admitted here," he announced. "Guthrie is my patient. If he needs hospitalization, he should be at County Hospital. I expect you to make arrangements to transfer him in the morning."

He really shouldn't have said that.

Crane felt both his brothers start to lunge forward. He caught Daniel but Brian grabbed Meade by his coat. "Guthrie is in here _because of you!"_ Brian snapped. "He isn't your patient anymore. None of us are."

Meade pulled free and straightened his coat. Brian was taller, but somehow the older man still managed to look down his nose at Brian. "Well, Brian, that's not exactly your decision, is it?" he sneered. "Adam is Guthrie's guardian, not you." He shot a look at Crane. "Or you. So I gather you didn't like my diagnosis this morning, Crane? What did you do, run right over to Jeff Mayer's office for a second opinion? He's been trying to run me out of business for two years. What did he tell you? That Guthrie had some rare disease? Guthrie has a _virus_. He needs rest and fluids, not hospital care."

Crane let go of Daniel and grabbed Brian, although to be honest he wasn't sure if it was to keep _Brian_ from beating up the elderly doctor, or to occupy himself so _he_ wouldn't beat up the elderly doctor. "Guthrie had a seizure. Right after you saw him. That's why I took him to Dr. Mayer."

The doctor's face changed. "A seizure?" He looked shocked. "_A seizure?_ Are you sure?"

"I damn well know a seizure when I see one!" Crane exploded. He felt Daniel gripping the back of his shoulder and forced himself to relax.

Brian didn't. "He's in here because of kidney failure, Walt," the older brother spat. "Kidney failure caused by parathion poisoning. You remember, the poisoning from two months ago?"

"That's impossible," the doctor retorted. "Parathion isn't toxic to the kidneys. Besides, I treated him with a dose of atropine."

"You treated it, but you didn't treat it _correctly,"_ Crane snapped. From the corner of his eye he saw a security guard heading in their direction. "Get away from here. Get away from our family."

Daniel was glaring at the doctor, but he'd remained quiet until now, "Come on, guys, let's go."

Brian's fists were clenched at his side. Crane could feel the tension in his brother's body, but somehow he relaxed when Crane and Daniel pushed him gently toward the elevator.

"This isn't over," Brian assured the stricken doctor before the three brothers headed to the elevators to rejoin their family.

_To be continued…_


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Sorry it's been so long without an update. This chapter just didn't want to be written. And it was a mess when I finished with it, so thank you (again!) to May for helping clean it up.

* * *

**Seven: Two Steps Up**

Adam McFadden knew what it meant to be terrified.

Two weeks after his high school graduation, he'd lost both parents to a drunk driver and found himself the legal guardian and de facto parent of his six younger brothers.

He'd never wanted to be a rancher; he wanted to be a doctor. He wanted to leave the little town of Murphys and start his life somewhere else, a city, where he could go to the grocery store and buy his meat and vegetables, not grow them himself.

He'd sure never planned on having six children at eighteen.

It seemed to him that ever since that summer night when his old life had ended along with his parent's, that he'd been afraid.

Afraid they'd lose the ranch. Afraid he couldn't support his family. Afraid he'd do something wrong.

Afraid he'd lose someone else he loved.

With six brothers, someone was _always_ in danger, doing something stupid, risking their health or their lives. And he had to let them. The way his parents had let him grown and learn and get hurt and make mistakes.

Brian had stepped up then, had stepped into the "pseudo-mother" spot that no one would ever dare call him on. But Brian had a temper, a healthy ego, and an eye for the ladies. He was better answering with his fists than with his tongue. Adam loved him-he was probably his best friend in the world-but he worried so much about him too.

He'd had to send Crane off to college when his younger brother was barely seventeen. He'd spent night after night stressing out that Crane maybe couldn't cope with being away from home, that he might fall in with the wrong crowd, get tangled up with drinking or drugs. And the worry hadn't ended when Crane graduated: he carried his heart on his sleeve; he almost cared _too_ much, as he'd shown during the recent mess with the co-op.

Daniel's life dream involved playing guitar and singing late at night in clubs and bars. And he'd leave someday, probably sooner rather than later, taking all of his heart and passion out into a world that Adam agonized might eat him alive.

And Evan. The rough-and-tumble cowboy who played every sport with zest, passion, and little concern for his own safety. Whose idea of a good time was throwing himself on the back of a wild bronco that wanted to kill him.

Even Ford, sensible, levelheaded Ford, was so shy and insecure that Adam wondered what he'd done wrong. How had he not given that kid more confidence him himself? Where had he failed?

But with all that, he'd never worried as much about Guthrie. He and his brothers had always adored their baby. Somehow Guthrie had managed to keep them all together and a family when everything seemed to be dissolving around them. Adam had always felt that between the six of them, they could keep Guthrie safe

At least until recently. In the last few months a madman poacher and his rifle had chased Guthrie through the mountains. Adam and Brian had barely arrived in time to save his life. And then Guthrie had been poisoned and now here they were, in a hospital and dealing with doctors who kept saying things like kidney failure, transplants, dialysis, seizures.

Adam knew what terrified was.

It was the way he felt right now.

He leaned closer to his wife and tightened his arms around her. He was so glad she was here, in his life. It seemed like he'd been waiting forever for her. He'd given up hope of ever finding a life mate. What woman would voluntarily take on a husband who best communicated fear by anger; a struggling ranch, and six brothers-in-law living under the same roof?

He'd never really meant to lie to Hannah about his brothers. He hadn't exactly told her the truth either. He'd mentioned his brothers, often, during their short courtship. And honestly, how could she _not have_ known? Murphys wasn't a big town and the McFaddens were always a topic of conversation. Most of the women over forty had at some point cooked, cleaned or baby-sat for the McFaddens. Practically every rancher within a fifty-mile radius knew the brothers, their father, or their ranch. And everyone between the ages of fifteen and thirty had probably been dated by, or punched out by, some McFadden brother. Hell, Hannah's boss Marie had doled out free meals to the family for years. Surely she would have mentioned them to Hannah?_ "Oh by the way, you see that twelve year old and sixteen year old at the corner table? Yes the ones that came in with Adam. Those are his two youngest brothers. You know, two of the six he's raising. And the dark-haired cowboy that flirts with you every time he walks in? That's Brian, he's another brother. The kid that was in the paper last week for placing at the rodeo, did you notice his name? Evan McFadden, right. No, he's not a cousin, he's another brother. There are two more; the blond guy that always reads while he's eating is Crane. And the cute dark haired kid who always seems to have a guitar on his back is Daniel. What do you mean, Adam never mentioned he was raising them? Where did you think they lived?"_

But somehow, in their month of courtship, Hannah had never figured out the truth about Adam's family. And Adam hadn't enlightened her. All he knew when he came back from that week of round-up, was that he'd missed her like she was another part of himself, and he couldn't stand the thought of ever leaving her again. And then he'd proposed; within two hours they were married and driving to the ranch. And then Adam had realized she was going to know sooner than later and it probably should come from him. Except he somehow hadn't managed to get the words out before she was confronted with the situation, or rather, confronted by his _brothers:_ Guthrie, Crane, Evan, Daniel, Brian and Ford.

He'd been afraid she'd take one look at his brothers, at their messy house, and head back to town for the closest annulment she could find. Afraid of it, but somehow he had known she wouldn't do it. When Hannah Moss McFadden made a vow, she kept it.

And after all that, she'd admitted that what made her angry was not that he had a ready made family, but that he hadn't trusted her enough to tell her about them in advance.

Now, not even a half-year into their marriage, he couldn't imagine his life without her in it. Well, he could imagine it-he woke from sweat-torn nightmares with her name on his lips, afraid their marriage had been the dream, not the reality. But she was always there, curled up next to him, united with him, just as she was now.

"He's going to be okay, Adam," she said now, running her hand up his arm.

But she didn't know that for sure. None of them did.

He sighed, rested his head against her dark hair. How had everything gone so wrong so fast? Just yesterday everything had seemed fine; they'd been all together, eating breakfast. He remembered Brian making Guthrie the poached egg on toast. That had been his mother's cure-all for everything from colds and flu to chicken pox and broken bones. He thought of his mother, so tiny in stature but so big in personality; with her long red hair usually tied back in a careless ponytail, and her blue eyes. He remembered the way she'd looked the last time he'd seen her, all excited about her evening out with his dad, dressed up in her best outfit with her hair piled on top of her head and makeup on her face. And his dad, that big, gentle man, wrapped around his wife's little finger. The two of them going down the walkway to the truck, holding hands like they were teenagers. Adam had been a teenager then himself, newly graduated from high school, and he remembered looking at Brian and both of them rolling their eyes at their parents. _'That's so embarrassing,' he remembered Brian saying. 'Hope none of my friend see them. I'll never live it down.'_

And Adam had agreed with his brother, but inside, he'd felt somehow warm and safe knowing his parents were still so much in love. He'd gone upstairs then, and looked around his room, planning what he was going to take to college with him and what he would leave behind. And he never, ever thought that home would ever be any different, that his parents and their love would ever be gone. He'd even laughed to himself, wondering if he'd be welcoming another sibling nine months from that very night.

Then, a few hours later, the sheriff had knocked on the door and suddenly his parents were gone, and everything was different. And Adam had been scared to death.

Just the way he felt right now.

"Mr. McFadden?"

Startled, he looked up. A nurse stood there, an older woman with graying dark hair under her starched cap. Her smile was warm as she said, "I have a young man who wants to see his family."

"Guthrie's awake?" Was all he could think of to ask.

"We just got him settled in his room," she smiled, pointing to the hallway in front of the nurse's station. "Room five-sixteen. You can all go see him for a little while. Just be quiet, most of the other children are asleep." Her eyes met his. "He's a little confused," she said quietly. "And a lot scared. He needs his family right now."

Hannah was already standing, ready to go. Daniel was shaking Evan and Ford awake. He looked up and caught Adam's eyes. "I'll go get Brian and Crane," he offered.

That was the first time Adam realized Brian and Crane were gone. He nodded at Daniel, and clapped one hand on Evan's shoulder and used the other to pull a sleepy Ford to his feet. "We'll meet you in Guthrie's room."

**7Bf7B**

Adam wasn't quite sure what he was expecting when he walked into the hospital room, but what he saw was his youngest brother sitting upright in the bed and staring at the door. Guthrie's eyes lit up when he saw them. "Adam," he breathed.

Adam was across the room in two steps and wrapping his baby brother up in a hug. "Hey, kiddo. You okay?"

Guthrie clung to him tightly, shaking. "I don't…how did I get here? I was-" he stopped. "I don't remember…and why am I hooked up to all these machines?"

Adam stepped away to let Hannah hug Guthrie, followed by Evan and Ford. He kept one hand on the youngest McFadden as he looked around the room. Guthrie was right. He had wires from underneath the hospital gown leading to machines above the bed that traced patterns and flashed numbers in yellow and green lights. Oxygen in a tube ran under his nose and something that looked like a plastic clothespin was clipped to his finger, connected to another machine by a gray wire. A blood pressure cuff was wrapped around one arm. And a clear plastic tube emerged from the blankets and snaked under the bed.

Hannah-trained in first aid and emergency medical procedures-obviously recognized some of the equipment. She held Guthrie's hand-the same one that had the clothespin clipped to the finger-and said, "This is called a pulse-oxymeter." She pointed to one of the machines. "It reads how much oxygen is in your blood, and how fast your heart is beating." Glancing up at the screen, she smiled, "And it looks as if everything is fine there."

Guthrie wasn't paying much attention, glancing around the room, but Ford and Evan were both staring at Hannah and seemed to be soaking in everything she said. "What are these?" Ford asked, pointing to the wires coming from Guthrie's chest.

Before Hannah could answer, Guthrie interjected, "Where's Brian? And Daniel and Crane?"

Evan gripped Guthrie's shoulder. Like Adam, he couldn't seem to let go of him. "Brian and Crane went for a walk while we were waiting. And Daniel went to get them."

"Oh." Now that his family was there, Guthrie seemed to be calming down. He leaned back into the bed. "I still don't know how I got here. What happened? When can I go home?"

All of them looked at Adam. He swallowed hard and admitted, "We don't know when you're going to come home, Guthrie. You had a seizure today and…" He couldn't find the words to say.

Hannah jumped in to help. "You're sick, Guthrie. The doctors are going to find out just what's wrong, and then they'll make you better. All of this," she gestured at the equipment surrounding the bed, "Is to help you."

"A seizure?" Guthrie seemed more surprised than alarmed by the news. "I don't remember anything since…breakfast. I think. Did Brian make me a poached egg?"

Evan sat on the edge of the bed. "That was yesterday, Guth."

Ford hit Evan in the back of the head, but it was too late.

Guthrie's eyes widened. "Yesterday?" he asked fearfully, looking back at Adam. "What-I don't remember anything after that, Adam! Why don't I remember? What's wrong with me?"

Adam didn't know what to say; he couldn't look Guthrie in the face and try to explain kidney failure and poisoning and actually, he was pretty pissed that none of the seemingly dozens of medical professionals that had been wandering around the hospital had told him what to tell Guthrie. He recognized the signs of Little Brother in Meltdown and opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was, "Is that Bambi?"

All of them-his wife, his three brothers-stared at him as if they feared the stress had driven him temporarily insane. After a minute, Guthrie's eyes followed his and the sick boy made a face.

"Yuck! Did they stick me in the babies' room?"

One by one, the people in the room swung around to look to see that the wall holding the door was painted colorfully with characters from-yes, Disney's _Bambi_-including Bambi himself, Thumper the rabbit, and the skunk. "Fouler," Adam laughed.

"It's Flower," Hannah pointed out.

"Not in our house," Evan grinned. "Our dad always called him _Fouler._ For the smell."

"I hated that movie," Ford groaned.

"No kidding!" Evan laughed. "You started crying so hard Dad had to carry you out of the theatre!"

Ford folded his arms and glared at his brother. "I was _three!"_

"Hey, Evan, if I remember right, you bawled when it was your first time to see it, too," Adam smiled, happily noticing that Guthrie had relaxed and wasn't panicking any more. He knew he was going to have to tell his brother the truth about how sick he was but, with any luck, it could wait until the rest of the family-or better yet, a doctor-arrived.

"Did I cry?" Guthrie asked.

Evan and Ford stopped laughing and turned serious. "I don't think-have you ever seen it?" Ford asked uncertainly.

Hannah frowned. "It's been on TV."

Guthrie shook his head. "I don't remember." He pointed at the cartoon figures on the wall. "I've seen commercials-back when the TV worked. But I don't remember the movie."

Hannah glared at her husband. "He's never seen it? It's a classic, Adam!"

Adam shrugged. "Hey, when you're the seventh of seven, Disney movies aren't all that popular if your older brothers have to take you. He saw _One Hundred and One Dalmatians_, though."

_"Cruella Deville, Cruella Deville-"_ Ford and Evan sang in unison.

Hannah closed her eyes and shook her head. "I married into a bunch of heathens!"

"Hey, now, we go to church every Sunday!" Adam teased. All he cared about was that Guthrie wasn't on the verge of hysterics anymore and all those monitors were beeping steadily and showing green lights. _That has to be good,_ he thought.

"I still don't understand why they're painted all over my room," Guthrie pouted.

"Well, sorry, young man, but every room on the floor has _some_ Disney or fairy tale mural on the wall. The artist who painted the mural out in the lobby did them all when the unit was remodeled last year." The words came from a nurse who bustled into the room. "Just be grateful you didn't get the Cinderella room." She winked.

She was younger than the nurse who had shown them to the room, and pretty, with long light brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, and sparkling brown eyes. She was wearing light pink scrubs, instead of a starched white uniform.

"The mural out in the waiting room is cool," Ford told Guthrie, perching on the corner of the bed. "I'll take you out to see it."

"Tomorrow," the nurse corrected. She smiled at all of them, but turned an especially bright smile on Guthrie. "Hey there. They tell me your name is Guthrie? I'm Carla. I'll be your night nurse." She pulled a hypodermic from her pocket. Guthrie's eyes widened at the sight of it, but before he could say anything Carla had smoothly injected the contents into the IV line. She grinned. "Isn't that better than a shot in the arm? Or you know, the butt?"

Guthrie's eyes followed the line to where the needle was taped into the back of his hand. "What was it?"

"A little something to help you sleep. It's almost lights out," Carla grinned. "I bet if you were home, you'd be fast asleep by now."

Adam looked at his watch. It was almost midnight. "No kidding. If we were home, we'd _all_ be asleep by now."

"I'm not sleepy," Guthrie protested. He yawned suddenly, and then looked at the nurse as if she'd betrayed him.

Carla smiled gently. "Sorry, Guthrie, but you need to sleep."

Guthrie's hand moved to grip Ford's arm tightly.

Carla seemed equipped with mind-reading abilities. She patted the boy's shoulder. "You won't be alone, you know."

"I won't?" Guthrie's voice broke, then he looked around as if he were afraid someone had noticed.

"Nah. I mean, I'll be in and out all night, checking on you. But you see that big chair in the corner?" She pointed, and Guthrie craned his head and nodded. "Well, that chair is actually a bed. Or at least, it turns into one. And I bet one of your family is planning on spending the night right there. And there's more! Because you've got such a _big family_, Dr. Marino told us to pull another bed in here. So, two people can stay!" She grinned. "Hope you know how lucky you are. Most of our kids only get one stay over guest!"

Adam noted she'd said kids instead of patients; noted too how Guthrie and even Ford and Evan had taken to her._ God knew what He was doing when He made that one a pediatric nurse,_ he mused. Guthrie was blinking sleepily and slid down in the bed; but he still gripped Ford's arm tightly and Hannah was holding his other hand just as tight.

"If I can get you, maybe, to help me with the other bed?" Carla asked, her eyes meeting Adam's. "Maybe Mom, too?"

Hannah startled when she realized Carla was talking about her. "Oh! I'm not-"

Carla shook her head. "I know you're the sister-in-law. Technically. But if the shoe fits, as my grandma used to say."

Evan moved to Hannah's side. From the look on his face, Adam realized his brother knew the nurse wanted to talk to him and Hannah outside of the room. "You go on, Hannah," he said. Guthrie was blinking sleepily now, his eyes closing more and more. Evan slid his hand over his brother's smaller one. "Me and Ford'll keep Squirt here company."

"Not a squirt," Guthrie muttered drowsily.

Once outside in the corridor, the nurse made sure the door was closed and beckoned Adam and Hannah to follow her to the nurse's station. Her playful manner vanished as she explained, "We're having some real problems with his blood pressure trying to skyrocket on us tonight. I heard him asking what was wrong. You did great, diverting him."

"We're going to have to tell him what's going on," Adam said.

"Of course, but Dr Marino and Dr. Mayer will be here tomorrow morning, and they can explain what all he needs to know." She sighed. "Kids-especially kids Guthrie's age-they want to know everything but really, they can't cope with knowing all of it. They get overwhelmed. Right now, that's the last thing he needs. Let's just get his blood pressure stable and go from there, okay?"

Adam looked at Hannah-she knew more about medical matters than he did, anyway-and was relieved to see her nod her head. "What can we do?" he asked.

"Just be there for him. And I know it's hard-trust me, it probably will be the hardest thing you've ever done-but don't let on how scared you are. The rest of the family, too. But don't just blow him off, either." She shrugged. "He knows something's wrong, obviously. And I'm not saying lie to him. Just-you're going to be upset, at times. All of you. And it's normal, you love him, you're afraid. I wish I could tell you how not to be, but that's human nature. But," she sighed, "OK I'm just going to say it. Have your meltdowns in the hall. In the chapel. Outside. Just don't have them where he can see you."

Adam remembered standing in this very hospital, a decade ago, somehow managing to force words out around the lump in his throat to tell his brothers they would never again see their parents. _She's wrong_, he thought. _That was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. Compared to that, this should be easy._

If he had only known how wrong he was.

**7Bf7B**

Just as they reached Guthrie's door, Adam saw Crane, Daniel and Brian hurrying down the hall. Some of the overhead lights were turned off now, but there was enough light for him to see their faces and know something had happened in the time they'd been gone. "What's wrong?" he asked sharply.

Crane and Daniel exchanged looks, then Daniel stepped forward and took the bedding and pillows-for the chair-bed and the cot that Carla had promised to deliver soon-from Adam's arms. "You talk," he said quietly. "I'll go see Guthrie."

"Adam?" Hannah questioned. He looked at her, not sure what she was asking.

"You need to hear this, too," Brian said to her. He managed a rueful smile. "Welcome to the big leagues, Sister. Or maybe I should call you _Mom_."

Hannah stared at him for a long minute, a shine of tears in her eyes. "_You're_ mom, Brian," she said quietly, a small smile at the corner of her lips. "There's no way I could be as good as you at it."

Adam realized they were talking about something completely different than what their words would indicate. Brian had had the hardest time accepting Hannah into the family. Adam knew he'd started feeling useless, like maybe there wasn't a place in the family for him anymore. Ridiculous, and Adam had told him that, but sometimes you had to knock Brian over the head with a shovel to get him to listen to you.

Brian looked at the floor, and then met Hannah's eyes with his own. "More than happy to share the title with you," he said quietly.

After a few seconds, Hannah nodded, reached out and grasped Brian's hand. "I'd be honored."

Crane cleared his throat. "I think, maybe, we'd better go out to the waiting room," he said, indicating all the closed doors in the hallway. "Don't want to wake up anybody. And umm, we might."

Adam frowned. "What are you saying?"

Brian and Crane exchanged looks. "You aren't going to believe who we met in the lobby downstairs."

**7Bf7B**

"What?" Adam exploded.

"Told you he wasn't going to like it," Brian said to Crane.

"Well, I'd like to kill Dr. Meade myself," Crane pointed out. "But at least you didn't punch him."

"I wanted to," Brian growled.

"I don't blame you," Adam took in a deep breath. "He actually came here to tell us we had to transfer Guthrie?"

"Don't know why he came here, but that's what he said," Brian confirmed.

"I'd like to know just why he doesn't have admitting privileges here," Crane mused.

Adam shot him a look. "What are you thinking?"

Crane shook his head. "I don't know. It's just; Brian and I were talking, outside. How could he have made a mistake like this? From the way Marino and Mayer were talking earlier, _any doctor_ should have known better than to just give atropine and then go on their way. Hell, the vet took more time with the dead calf than Meade did with Guthrie that day. And Ford was right. He didn't even know for sure what the poison was when he gave the antidote." His shoulders slumped. "Maybe I'm just seeing monsters where they don't exist. It's no secret I never liked the guy."

"Hey," Brian lightly slapped Crane's shoulder. "Looks like you were right not to trust him." He swallowed hard. "Adam, I'm the one who said we should switch back to him after Mama and Dad died. If Guthrie-"

"No!" Adam held up his hand. "Stop right there, Brian. You too, Crane. I know that look. Neither one of you are to blame for this. We trusted our family doctor. Why wouldn't we? He's been our doctor for ten years. If anybody is at fault here-"

"Oh, no you don't!" Brian fired back. "It's not _your_ fault either."

"Look," Hannah said quietly, "It's late and God knows we're all emotional. How about we stop blaming ourselves for what's wrong with Guthrie and just concentrate on getting him better?"

Adam looked at her. "Blaming _our_selves? Just why are _you_ blaming yourself? And what are you blaming yourself for?"

Hannah flushed. "I'm trained in first aid, remember? Emergency medical procedures. Adam, I went to nursing school for two years! I should have realized-"

"It's no one's fault," Crane said, in a tone that implied he wasn't sure he believed it. "Anyway, what's done is done. Hannah's right. We just have to focus on Guthrie now."

Adam rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Look, we're all exhausted. Crane-"

"Don't tell me to take the younger ones home," Crane protested. "I'm not leaving. And I doubt Daniel, Evan or Ford will want to leave either!"

"We can't all stay!" Adam protested. "Who knows how long Guthrie's going to be here, we can't just abandon the ranch and besides, they've all got school-"

"We know that," Brian said, unexpectedly backing Crane. "Tomorrow we can work out some kind of schedule. But hell, it's after midnight already. We might as well all stay. You really think Daniel, Evan and Ford will be worth anything in school tomorrow anyway? We can head home later and take care of the stock. Work out a system. But I vote we just let everyone stay tonight. This is a big waiting room," he gestured around.

Adam glanced at Hannah. She nodded, tucking her hand in his. "The family needs to be together tonight," she said clearly.

Adam sighed, looking at his wife, his brothers, thinking of the rest of the family back in Guthrie's room. He thought of the night their parents had died, when all the brothers had piled together in his and Brian's old room at home, crying and huddling together, clinging to the family they had left. "You're right," he admitted, although he wasn't sure whether he was talking to Hannah, or Brian, or Crane, or maybe all of them. "Tonight, we stay together."

_To be continued…_


	8. Chapter 8

_**Eight: One Step Over**_

The following Sunday, Hannah dished up a huge breakfast before the family-with the exception of Crane and Guthrie, who were at the hospital-headed off to church. The mood around the table was almost gleeful, especially compared to the quiet and fear they'd felt most of the last week.

Guthrie was still in the hospital, and still griping about Bambi on his wall, but doing well. Actually, one of his doctors described his progress as "Almost miraculous." They were talking about discharging him by Wednesday, although he'd be confined to the house and not able to go to school for a couple more weeks. The school had sent work home for him, and had even offered a tutor so that he didn't get behind but, with six older brothers and Hannah herself, a tutor wasn't needed. Crane supervised Guthrie's studies, the way he helped everyone during homework time, but the whole family had jumped in to assist.

Guthrie wanted to come home; even with someone with him all the time he was tired of the hospital and basically tired of being sick. Hannah knew as he recuperated it would be difficult to keep him from doing too much, but it was a challenge she would welcome. It was amazing that the absence of one twelve year old could create such a big hole in the house.

On the other hand, maybe it wasn't. Hannah had fast figured out Guthrie was the glue that kept the McFadden men together. Maybe because he was so much younger-Ford, the next to youngest, was almost four years older than Guthrie-or maybe because he had been so little when their parents had died that all his brothers figured they had had a hand in raising him. Whatever the reason, if the McFaddens were a solar system, Guthrie was the sun and the rest orbited around him. Hannah had once accused them of pretending he wasn't there, but she had quickly changed her mind. Oh, he got picked on, he was the youngest after all, but all the teasing was gentle and affectionate; honestly, Hannah couldn't remember anyone ever giving Guthrie more than a mild reprimand. He probably could have been a spoiled monster, if he hadn't had such a sweet disposition.

And he was Hannah's barometer for the family. Hannah Moss might have always wanted to be part of a big family, but she was an only child who had no idea of how big families actually operated. She had cousins who were close to her age, but their dad was military and they moved all around the world. The family had made an effort to get together at Christmas, but after her father died and she and her mother moved to Denver, communication between the two branches trickled off. Hannah had actually been shocked when her aunt had shown up for her mother's funeral. She heard from her cousins occasionally-one was getting married in June and was insisting Hannah be a bridesmaid-and they had both sent congratulations and gifts when she'd told them about her marriage, but she hadn't actually seen either one of them in years.

What Hannah couldn't understand-what probably no one who wasn't raised in a big family could ever understand-was how truly noisy and argumentative such a family could be.

The McFadden boys displayed a lot of love for each other, but they could fight like the proverbial gingham dog and calico cat. About what-Hannah considered-_nothing._

_Her second week at the ranch, Daniel and Evan got into an argument at the supper table about-well she was never able to figure out what it was about. She heard references to Daniel's guitar and Evan's saddle and who Lori had smiled at two weeks before - but within seconds it had escalated into red faces, clenched fists, and threats of violence._

_Hannah was honestly upset - near tears - and what astonished her most was that no one else seemed to be paying any attention at all. Adam and Brian and Crane went on talking about - something, the cows or the harrow or the roof - paying no attention to their younger brothers even though they were having to yell themselves to be heard over the mayhem going on in the middle of the table. Ford - whom she thought was maybe the most sensitive of the brothers - just continued to eat his supper. And Guthrie caught her look and rolled his eyes, saying "Jerks."_

_Somehow, in the midst of screaming bloodcurdling threats at each other - Hannah expected the dishes to start flying any second - both the battling siblings heard their youngest brother and looked at him._

_"Who you calling a jerk?" Evan laughed._

_"Both of you," Guthrie volleyed back._

_"Besides, Lori wasn't smiling at either of you," Ford chimed in. "She was smiling at Rob Parker. He asked her to the winter dance."_

_Evan made a face. "Rob Parker? Bummer. Hey, Daniel, is your band playing at the dance?"_

_"Yeah, we are," Daniel nodded. "You going to ask Cindy Harris?" Then he seemed to notice Guthrie's plate was empty and asked him, "You want more?" When Guthrie nodded, Evan, without turning a hair, passed the platter of pork chops to Daniel and started talking about whether he should ask Cindy or some girl named Rachel who was new to the school. Daniel filled Guthrie's plate and the two of them continued to chat cordially with each other as if they hadn't been threatening murder not two minutes before._

_Later, when Hannah asked Adam why he hadn't intervened in the argument, her husband just blinked at her and asked, confused, "What argument?"_

But, the night that Daniel had come home after he'd found out about Brian's history with Tally Dean, he'd jerked Brian out of bed, fire in his eyes and not listening to anyone. Guthrie had been terrified. His frightened screams of _"Adam! Crane! You'd better get down here!"_ had roused the whole house and Hannah would always remember the sight of him standing there at the foot of the stairs, shaking, his eyes huge as he watched Daniel rip into Brian.

She'd come to realize that Guthrie knew instinctively when it was time to worry, and when it was just a "normal" argument. Adam had told her later how Brian and Guthrie had both laughed at him the night of their first Real Fight, as traumatic as it had been for the newlyweds. But, a couple of months later, she and Adam got into another argument and, not meaning it, she'd yelled something she'd always heard her mother yell at her dad, "Maybe I just should divorce you!" She heard a gasp and turned around to see Guthrie standing there, face white, eyes huge, looking so frightened she could have cheerfully bitten off her tongue.

Adam had moved past her and caught up the younger boy in a hug, but Guthrie's eyes remained fixed on her, something like betrayal in his glance. She'd said, "No, no Guthrie. I just - I didn't mean it, you have to know that. I'd never leave Adam." Never leave you, she silently added. Still, Guthrie hadn't calmed down until later that evening. She and Adam still argued - they loved each other too much not to - but she was careful never to say things like divorce or leave or anything else so very terminal.

She noticed that Guthrie tensed up anytime Adam and Brian got into it. But when Brian and Crane went at it, which seemed to be constantly because the two of them disagreed about almost everything, Guthrie either paid no attention or laughed. Same with Evan and Daniel, at least until they started throwing punches. However, if Ford seemed out of sorts with anything or anybody, Guthrie hovered around him.

If any of his brothers were aware of it, they never said anything.

Now, she watched happily as eggs, fried potatoes, sausage, bacon and eggs disappeared into hungry mouths. The conversation at the table was light and cheerful. It no longer seemed like darkness lurked in every corner.

Evan drained his orange juice in one gulp, then put the glass down on the table. "Ford and I want to stay with Guthrie tonight," he announced.

Although the whole family had stayed at the hospital Monday night and most of the day Tuesday, Tuesday night Adam had ordered everyone home. Daniel, Evan and Ford needed to go back to school, and they couldn't keep lurking in the waiting room, he'd announced. After that they had worked out a schedule. Crane, Hannah or Adam stayed at night. Brian came early in the morning and stayed until Daniel arrived in the afternoon. Because they were in school all day, Ford and Evan could only visit for an hour or two in the evenings after supper. Neither of them had been happy about that. And Hannah had noticed how Guthrie lit up when the two brothers closest to him in age walked into the room.

Adam took a sip of his coffee, eyeing Evan over the rim of the cup. He sat it down on the table. "You two have school tomorrow," he pointed out.

From the grins that covered Evan, Ford's and Daniel's faces, Hannah realized they had planned this.

"No, we don't," Ford said innocently. "It's parent teacher conferences, remember? You're supposed to meet with my homeroom teacher at eleven."

"And with mine at two," Evan continued.

"And mine at eight thirty. In the morning," Daniel chimed in helpfully.

"Damn!" Adam exploded. "Didn't we just have parent-teacher conferences?"

"Yeah. A year ago," Daniel nodded, grinning.

Brian dropped his head into his hands. "I hate these stupid things."

"_You_ hate them?" Adam returned. "_I_ hate them." He eyed his younger brothers balefully. "Okay. Let me have it. What am I going to hear tomorrow? Evan, did you steal the mascot from Angels Camp again? How many teachers have you mouthed off at this semester, Daniel? At least you haven't been called into the office for fighting. Have you?"

Daniel and Evan both shook their heads. "Really, Adam, it's nothing. We've been angels this semester."

Adam snorted. "I know both of you, remember?"

Ford raised one hand cautiously. "Umm, Ms. Taylor might have something to say about me."

"You?" Adam looked shocked. Then he looked confused. "Who is Mrs. Taylor?"

"Ms. Taylor," Evan corrected. "Don't call her Missus. Or Miss. She gets pissed."

"She's new," Daniel added. "From New York City."

"Come to educate all us ignorants in the wilderness," Evan tossed in.

"Guys," Ford protested. "She's not _that_ bad."

"What is her gripe with you?" Brian wanted to know. "What does she teach, anyway? Are you having problems in her class?"

Evan and Daniel both snorted. "Ford doesn't have problems in class, remember? He's Crane, Junior. Mr. Four point oh."

"She thinks he's too polite," Daniel clarified.

"She thinks everyone is too polite," Ford corrected. "She thinks we're all laughing at her behind her back."

"Are you?" Hannah questioned.

"Not me," Ford shrugged. Then his face turned pink. "Well, maybe once. But it was kind of funny."

"I still haven't heard what this woman teaches," Adam pointed out.

"Social studies," Ford said. "Well, they don't call it that this year. Or she doesn't call it that. I have her for _Contemporary World Problems."_

"And I have her for U.S. Government." That was Daniel.

"I have her for U.S History," finished Evan.

"Wait, you all three have her and _Ford_ is the one she wants to complain about?" Adam asked in disbelief.

"Hey, she's never going to accuse Evan of being too polite," Daniel laughed.

"She thinks all three of us have _issues_," Ford said carefully.

"Issues. What does that mean?"

All three of them stared at the table, refusing to talk. Brian sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Oh. That, huh?"

Hannah was confused. "What?"

"Poor little under socialized orphans," Ford muttered, in what was, for him, an amazingly bitter tone.

Adam closed his eyes. "Crap."

"We _lack a matriarchal influence_," Evan said. "That means we don't have a mother," he added helpfully.

"Yes, thank you, Evan, I figured that was what it meant." Adam sighed. He exchanged glances with Brian. "Want to go with me?"

"No!" Ford yelled. When everyone stared at him, he turned blisteringly red. "She knows who Brian is. Well, she's met him at least."

Brian looked befuddled. "Where?"

Daniel reached over and rubbed Ford's shoulder. "At a bar, where do you think, Bri? Then on Monday she had plenty to say about your _hedonistic ways_."

"Damn," Brian groaned. "But I don't - I mean, what's her first name? I wouldn't hit on someone who told me to call her _Ms. Taylor_!"

"Maybe Hannah should go with you," Evan said.

Daniel snorted. "Please. I thought you _liked_ Hannah. Can you just imagine what Ms. Taylor would say about someone who voluntarily married into our family?"

"Well, she didn't exactly voluntarily marry into our family," Ford said. "You didn't know we lived here," he directed to Hannah.

"Oh, that would be even worse!" Evan covered his eyes.

"No, guys, it's fine. I think I'd like to go meet this woman," Hannah said, catching Adam's eyes across the table. "If it's okay with Brian?"

Brian didn't answer, obviously still trying to figure out who the teacher was.

"So," Ford changed the subject, "Evan and I can stay with Guthrie tonight, right?"

Adam shrugged. "Sure. I guess it'd be a good idea, too; Hannah and I probably both need a good night's sleep to face this woman. Just don't tick off the night nurses. Carla is on duty tonight, I think; she'll be fine with it."

Hannah caught sight of the clock and started hurrying everyone to get done so they could get ready for church. There was a flurry of activity around the table, everyone moving except Brian. As she started upstairs to get dressed, Hannah heard him ask plaintively, "What bar was it?"

**7Bf7B**

It took the family awhile to get away from church because everyone wanted to know how Guthrie was doing and if they needed anything.

It was the way of small towns, Hannah thought, although she knew there was something more here. Adam had told her more than once about how the town stepped up to help the boys after their parents were killed. She'd been sitting in Marie's once, a couple of weeks after her wedding, when a woman she didn't know came over and handed her a thick notebook. "Some of the recipes we fed to the boys," she'd said, waving her hand and disappearing out the door. Even Cheryl Wheeler had taken her aside once and told her, seriously, that Guthrie loved Dutch apple pie and had offered her recipe for it. Hannah had already figured out what Guthrie's favorite dessert was, but she took the recipe anyway.

"Now, Hannah," the minister's wife was saying, "If you need help once Guthrie gets home you just let me know. We'll have dinners brought in for you and do you have enough firewood?"

Hannah just stared at her. The one thing they had was plenty of firewood, although she appreciated the sentiment. Adam came up then and caught her by the arm.

"Excuse me, Gail," he said, smiling, "But we've got some impatient boys wanting to see their brother and if we don't get moving soon they'll probably leave us behind."

"Oh, of course," the minister's wife apologized. "I didn't mean to keep you. You just call me, Hannah, and I'll take care of everything."

"What is she taking care of?" Adam asked, guiding Hannah to the parking lot.

"I'm not sure," Hannah confessed. "She's either offering to bring us supper or cut some firewood, I kind of got lost which one."

Evan and Daniel were waiting impatiently by the truck. Ford stood a few feet away, talking quietly to Cleo Wheeler. When he saw them coming, he said something to her that made her smile and squeeze his hand. She walked away while he headed toward the truck. "I see Cleo and her mother here, but I never see Wheeler in church," Hannah mused.

Brian was right behind her and he growled, "Probably afraid the church would burn down if he stepped in it."

"Brian, it's Sunday," Adam reproved. He broke out in a grin. "Besides, Wheeler saved our bacon with that bull he donated to us."

"Hah! Hannah saved our bacon, and if we hadn't got there in time, Wheeler would have repossessed that bull." Brian gestured for the younger boys to jump in the back of the truck, which they all did. "I wonder why he hasn't tried to steal him again?"

"Maybe he's afraid of Hannah's right hook," Evan joked.

Hannah felt herself blush. She still couldn't believe she'd punched the older man at the fair.

Brian held the door open for her and she slid into the middle of the bench seat as Brian crawled in beside her and Adam took the driver's seat. Then he started the truck and they headed to the hospital.

**7Bf7B**

Guthrie and Crane were playing Monopoly when they came into the room. "I got you, Brian!" Guthrie gloated. "You landed on Boardwalk. With a hotel that comes to-" then he looked up and saw the rest of his family and he smiled hugely, apparently forgetting the game. "There you are! Where have you been, we've been waiting for _hours!"_

"Or maybe, you know, thirty minutes," Crane said dryly. He looked tired, with dark circles under his eyes. Guthrie on the other hand, looked well rested and full of energy. He accepted hugs from them all. A few minutes later, he was explaining a movie - _The Shadow Riders_ - he and Crane had watched on TV the night before to an enthralled audience of Ford, Daniel and Evan.

Hannah frowned. When she had left the day before, Guthrie had been down to one monitor, no oxygen, and no IV, although the port was still attached. He still only had one monitor, but IV fluids were dripping down the line. She wasn't the only one to notice, both Brian and Adam looked inquiringly at Crane.

"Something happen?" Adam asked, in a low voice, so that the younger boys wouldn't overhear.

Crane shook his head. "Not really. His temp spiked a little bit early this morning, so they started the IV. They said it's nothing to worry about." He sighed, ran a hand through his messy hair. "Adam, we need to go down to the business office. They want to talk about payment arrangements. Guthrie's student insurance is covering some, but-"

Adam made a face. "I've been waiting for that."

"Me, too. I think they waited until they knew exactly how much the insurance was going to cover. I mean, it's okay, they're willing to work with us, but we need to go see them today."

"On a Sunday?" Brian asked.

"No such thing as weekends when you're after money, I guess." Crane shook his head.

Adam was eyeing him closely. "Why don't we go right now, and then we can get you some coffee at the cafeteria. You look awful. Didn't you get any sleep? Was Guthrie up all night?"

"No. Guthrie fell asleep after you all left and didn't even wake up when they put the IV back in." Crane lowered his voice even more, although the loud chattering coming from the other side of the room would have kept the boys from hearing him. "The boy in the room next door, the one with leukemia? He died last night."

"Oh, no!" Hannah gasped. She'd seen the boy - Kevin - from a distance and had had coffee one morning with his mother and had been impressed with her quiet faith. "What happened? I thought he was doing okay."

Crane shrugged. "I don't know, exactly. It was fast though, and when he - when it was over - his mother just cried and cried. It was…" his voice trailed off and he quickly looked back at Guthrie.

Adam took charge, then, in that quiet way she so loved about him, wrapping an arm around Crane's shoulders and giving him a little hug. "Come on. Let's go get some coffee and talk to the business office. Give you a break."

"I'll come, too," Hannah chimed in, wanting to regain some composure before she saw Guthrie.

"I'll stay here with the babies," Brian managed a grin. "And try to fix your Monopoly mess. Geez, Crane, and you went to college?"

**7Bf7B**

They decided to go for coffee first, and lingered over it. Finally, when Crane wasn't looking so beat down, they went into the wing that housed all the business offices. The door to the office they wanted was open and the middle-aged woman at her desk smiled at them. "Come in, come in," she welcomed. "You're the McFaddens, correct? I recognize Crane. Everything's taken care of, you just need to sign these papers and we're all done."

Crane reached for the file she offered while Adam cleared his throat and said, "We'll make monthly payments-"

"No, no that's not necessary, now," the woman hastened to say.

Adam looked at Hannah, then back at the woman. "Why-"

"Adam," Crane broke in. His eyes were huge and all color had drained from his face. "Look." He shoved the papers at them.

"What?" Adam asked, taking the papers and looking at them. Hannah ducked under his shoulder so she could see them, too.

Adam took in a deep breath. "A zero balance? We don't owe anything?"

"No." Now the billing officer was looking surprised. "You didn't know? Someone came in this morning and paid the bill in full."

"Who?" Adam demanded.

"I don't know," the woman admitted. "He paid in cash. He wouldn't tell me his name. I thought it was someone in the family-"

Hannah didn't know what to say. Apparently, neither did her husband. But Crane did.

"You have to know who paid the bill," he said quietly. "It's the law, you had to have taken some ID."

Hannah and Adam stared at him, but Crane was looking at the woman behind the desk.

She took a deep breath. "All right. I do know the name. But he didn't want you to know and I honestly thought it was a family member. Couldn't it be? An uncle or something?"

"We don't have any other family," Adam exploded. "And we don't take charity. You call him-whoever he was-and give that money back. We'll pay this bill."

She eyed him steadily. "I can't do that, Mr. McFadden. Why don't you just accept it as the gift it is?"

"Because-" Adam started, but Hannah put a soothing hand on his arm.

"Come on, Adam, let's go."

He hesitated a minute, then turned on his heel and stormed out of the office. Crane followed without a word and Hannah looked helplessly at the woman behind the desk. "I'm sorry-"

The woman shook it off. "It's okay. I understand. But try to make them see this is a good thing."

They ended up outside, where Adam paced restlessly and Crane stood still, his arms crossed. He has to be freezing, Hannah thought. She and Adam were still wearing their coats but Crane just had on a sweater and his jeans.

Adam finally stopped pacing and confronted Crane. "Who?" he demanded. "Who do we know who has that kind of money, who would do that for us?"

Crane shook his head. "I don't know. Tom and Carey Barrett, maybe?"

Adam looked like he was considering it. "Maybe," he agreed.

Hannah had met Tom and Carey, and their daughter who was in Guthrie's grade, and knew that the Barretts were old friends of the McFadden family. She vaguely remembered something about Tom and Adam, Sr. being in some kind of business together.

"I can't think of who else it would be," Crane said helplessly.

Adam shrugged. "Maybe. But it's not like Tom. I mean, I could see him loaning us the money, but just paying the bill behind our backs, that doesn't sound like him."

"You can call him and ask," Hannah said practically. "Right now, we need to go back upstairs. The boys will be wondering where we are, and Crane is going to freeze to death if we stay out here much longer."

For the first time, Adam seemed to see that his brother wasn't wearing a coat. "Crane!" He shrugged off his own heavy winter coat and draped it over his brother's shoulders. "All we need is for you to get sick, too."

They went back upstairs and joined the rest of the family. The visit stretched out into the afternoon and by the time they finally left Guthrie with Ford and Evan for the night, darkness had fallen and the temperature had dropped even more. It was too cold for anyone to ride in the back, even wrapped in blankets as they had earlier in the day, so Brian took the wheel and Crane and Adam crammed onto the bench seat, with Daniel on Crane's lap and Hannah on Adam's.

Daniel had heard about the bill being mysteriously paid and had another idea about who had done it. "Maybe it was Hoops," he offered cheerfully.

"Who's Hoops?" Hannah asked.

"Old friend of Adam's," Brian answered. "Played basketball with us. Now he plays for Philadelphia." He paused. "You know, it could be, Adam. He's rolling in money."

"And how would he know about Guthrie?" Adam demanded. "I haven't told him. Hell, I haven't even talked to him since the last time he called. Besides, his wife's divorcing him and the season is heating up."

"I still think it's Tom Barrett," Crane said.

"I'll call him and find out," Adam said flatly.

"Not tonight, you won't," Brian corrected. "Adam, you're too het up. Whoever did this was trying to help us, you yelling at them on the phone isn't the best way to say thank you." He went on, "I know how you feel about charity, hell I feel the same way. But maybe this once you should let it slide."

"He's right," Crane chimed in.

The atmosphere inside the truck was tense for a minute, and then Hannah felt Adam relax. "You two agree on something? Wow, maybe I'd better take a step back," he said.

It wasn't much of a joke but laughter rang out, anyway.

**7Bf7B**

Hannah had had the foresight to put a roast in the crock-pot before they'd left that morning, and the house was filled with the fragrance when they came in. They ate quickly, then Adam and Brian headed down to the barn to hurry through the evening chores. Daniel offered to do dishes, and since even the breakfast dishes were still piled in the sink, Crane said he'd help. Hannah wanted to disagree - Crane looked exhausted. But there'd been enough arguing for one day and she really needed to do a couple of loads of laundry anyway. They were down to the last of the clean towels. _Thank goodness no one has school tomorrow,_ she thought, what with worrying about Guthrie and spending time at the hospital no one had washed any clothes all week.

It wasn't until much later, when they were alone in bed together, that Hannah could ask Adam the question she'd been wondering about. "Why are you so dead set against someone paying the bill? If it is Tom Barrett, he and your dad were old friends. He looks upon you all as family."

Adam was silent for a long time, then he rolled over to face her. "My dad wouldn't take charity," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "He paid every bill, down to the penny. It just feels like I'm letting him down, somehow."

"Letting him down how? By taking the money, or because Guthrie is sick in the first place?"

He shrugged, not meeting her eyes. "Both, I guess."

"Oh Adam," Hannah sighed, her heart swelling. "You listen to me. I may not have ever met your parents, but I know they're proud of you. You hold this family together. You honestly think your dad could blame you for Guthrie getting sick? Blame Dr. Meade for that." A thought occurred to her. "You don't think-Adam, maybe Dr. Meade paid the bill. Maybe he blames himself for Guthrie. He should," she finished acidly.

Adam frowned. "I guess. I don't know if he has that kind of money."

"He's been a doctor for a long time," Hannah pointed out.

"Yeah," Adam conceded. He sighed and reached for her. "I don't want to think about it right now, girl. I just want to hold you."

**7Bf7B**

Sometime, deep in the bowels of the night, Hannah heard a noise and slowly drifted into wakefulness. "Adam," she murmured. Then, realizing what it was she'd heard, she jerked wide-awake and shook her husband. "Adam! It's the phone!"

"At this hour?" Adam rolled over, then he must have realized, as she had, what that could mean. He jumped out of bed and ran for the door. Hannah followed, pulling on her robe. Adam started toward the phone down the hall, only to pull up short and look downstairs, where the living room lights were burning brightly.

Hannah followed his gaze, seeing Brian holding the downstairs phone, his back to them. He put the receiver down and turned to look up at them, and her heart thudded painfully.

She had never seen someone look so devastated in her life.

"Brian?" Adam practically whispered.

She heard a door slam behind her and looked back to see Crane and Daniel stumbling out of their room. "What's going on?" Daniel yawned.

Brian's mouth moved, but he didn't say anything. Tears started spilling down his face. "That was the hospital," he said finally, his voice thin and scared. "Guthrie-they've had to take him into surgery. It…it doesn't look good. They said he…he started hemorrhaging…"

Hannah started to shake. She heard Daniel make a choked noise deep in his throat.

Adam turned to face her, his face white and still. "Let's go," was all he said.

_To be continued…_


	9. Chapter 9

**Nine: Four Steps Down, One Step Back (and a few hours earlier…)  
**

Evan went down to the cafeteria to get some supper for himself and Ford. When he got back to the fifth floor, balancing two Styrofoam containers, plastic forks, and two drinks, he was surprised to see Russ Wheeler in the waiting room. Evan was tempted to ignore the man - he still hadn't forgiven him for their bull being killed, even though, thanks to Hannah and the County Fair, they had replaced him with one of Wheeler's own prize stock. But Wheeler took the decision out of his hands. With a nod, he stood up and approached Evan. "Looks like you've got your hands full there, son," he said genially enough. "Let me help you."

Evan was so astonished by the pleasant comment he barely noticed Wheeler relieving him of the two cold drinks and the plastic silverware. "Cleo and the Missus wanted to check on Guthrie," Wheeler went on, falling into step with Evan and leading the way toward Guthrie's room.

Well, I guess that makes sense, Evan reasoned. After all, Mrs. Wheeler had never been anything but nice to the McFadden boys, being one of the ladies who had brought a weekly dinner over to the ranch for years after Evan's parents had died. And Cleo and Ford were dating, even though they seemed to spend more time studying and just talking than they did going out.

For the first time, Evan wondered why Russ Wheeler, who made his opinion of the McFadden family pretty clear at all times, allowed his only daughter to date Ford. Come to think of it, he's backed off since Ford took Cleo to that dance. Hasn't tried to muscle us off the land or anything.

"Cooper Johnson was over for supper the other night. Had nothing but good things to say about you in his rodeo school," Wheeler was saying when Evan started paying attention again. "Your daddy would be proud of you."

Evan halted. He knew Wheeler and his dad had been friends, but the way Wheeler had acted in recent years… "Don't think he'd be too proud of _you_," he retorted, the words spitting out before he thought about them. "You killed our bull and tried to take the ranch away from us."

He was hopping mad, spoiling for a fight. The stress of Guthrie's illness, plus his lingering antagonism for Wheeler, was boiling through his veins now, and he wanted nothing so much as to punch the older man in the jaw, the way Hannah had at the fair. "What was it you said, _You McFaddens are nothing but a pain in the butt?"_

Wheeler had stopped too. He sighed, and to Evan, he suddenly looked very old and tired. "A man makes mistakes, Evan," he said quietly. "I've made plenty. Sometimes…a man gets so focused on what he's doing he forgets the people around him."

Wheeler's eyes glistened with unshed tears. That - more than the words he'd just uttered - startled Evan and dampened his anger.

"Time was, Guthrie and my Paul were like brothers," Wheeler added.

Paul had been the youngest of Wheeler's three children, just a few months older than Guthrie. Wheeler was right, the two of them had grown up close, best friends. Evan could remember Guthrie going over to Wheeler's fancy house for weekends, coming back talking about all the toys Paul had. Guthrie being Guthrie, it had never seemed to bother him that the Wheelers had so much more than they did, he just enjoyed going over there. Paul spent weekends at the Circle Bar Seven, too.

Then Paul had died in a freak accident. Guthrie had cried for his friend. And though he had friends from school now, he never seemed to get close to anyone else the way he had Paul.

"How's Del doing?" Evan asked, because he honestly couldn't think of anything else to say. Del - his real name was Derek but no one around Murphys ever called him that - was Wheeler's oldest; he'd gone off to college on a baseball scholarship a year after Crane had left for UC Davis. Funny, Evan hadn't seen him too much after that.

Wheeler's face changed, closed down. "I'd better get Cleo and my wife; we need to head home." He strode down the hallway, leaving Evan gaping in his wake.

**7Bf7B**

Evan couldn't stop thinking about Wheeler that evening. He and Ford ate the supper he'd brought up - and part of Guthrie's, too, because Guthrie announced even Brian cooked better than the hospital kitchen did and he wasn't hungry. Then they settled down to watch a movie on the color TV in Guthrie's room.

Television didn't play much of a part in the McFaddens' lives. Evan could still remember when the big old TV downstairs had died - right in the middle of the multipart _Roots_ that Crane had been watching for school. Even before that though, they'd never watched it much. Evan vaguely recalled him and Daniel and Ford in their pajamas, watching Saturday morning cartoons, but that had been a long time ago. His parents had encouraged their sons to spend their evenings singing, reading, studying or dancing, rather than watching just any old show. Now, when a teacher assigned a program to watch, whichever brother it was watched it on the small portable in Adam and Hannah's room, which was black and white and got only four fuzzy stations because there was no way the family could afford cable. Hannah had had a color TV in her little trailer when she'd married Adam, but somehow they'd never got around to moving it into the house and she'd sold it back when they'd needed a new roof and a new water pump at the same time.

Still, Evan enjoyed the movie that night, even though he had a feeling neither Crane nor Adam would have allowed Guthrie to watch it. But Crane and Adam weren't here and Evan was the oldest so the three of them settled in for the evening. It was almost like going to the movies, except there was no popcorn.

He noticed the new books on the table near Guthrie's bed and asked, during a commercial break, where they had come from.

"Mr. Wheeler brought them," Guthrie answered, shifting restlessly in the bed.

"You mean Mrs. Wheeler. And Cleo," Ford corrected.

"No, I don't," Guthrie snapped back. "Mr. Wheeler brought them this morning. Before you all came from church. He was by himself that time."

Evan and Ford exchanged looks. "How many times has he been by?" Evan asked, because he couldn't believe no one would have mentioned it if Wheeler had been making regular visits.

Guthrie frowned. "One other time," he said finally. "Couple of days ago. Hannah was here, but she'd gone down for coffee. Anyway he only stayed a few minutes that time. He was nice though. Like before." Guthrie didn't mention Paul - he never talked about his dead friend - but Evan knew what he meant. Evan started to ask something, but Guthrie shivered suddenly. "I'm really cold," he said, "Can you get me another blanket?"

Evan hadn't been to the hospital enough to know where blankets were kept and there didn't seem to be any extra in the room, so he left to go searching. He ended up asking a nurse.

It wasn't Carla - she didn't come on duty until eleven - but this nurse was nice too, as she led Evan to a giant oven-like thing that she called "the warmer". She pulled a couple of blankets out and they were toasty-warm to Evan's hands. "I'll be down in a bit to check on him and bring you guys bedding for the night," she promised. "I saw he ate all his dinner."

Evan stopped, because he and Ford hadn't thought about that before they'd split Guthrie's food between the two of them. "Actually, he didn't," he blurted out. "He said he wasn't hungry. Ford and I ate it. I'm sorry, I didn't even think - at home we don't waste food."

The nurse frowned, but her voice was soothing as she said, "It's all right, Evan," and really, how did all these nurses remember all their names? "I'll bring him something, maybe he's hungry now."

Evan felt bad all the way back to Guthrie's room, because really, he and Ford should have made Guthrie eat. He was sick, after all, that's why he was here. _It's just, you don't usually have to make Guthrie eat. Hannah says he eats like he has a tapeworm._

The nurse - Guthrie called her Donna - came in while Evan was still tucking the warm blankets around him. She was pushing a cart that had cookies and pudding - enough for all three of them. Also blankets and pillows for Ford and Evan to use on the cot and the reclining chair. She took Guthrie's temperature and blood pressure and then she frowned, and took the blood pressure again.

Ford was watching her, too. "What's wrong?" he asked sharply.

She smiled. "Nothing. Guthrie's BP is down a little. Probably because he didn't eat." She managed the controls of the electric bed, bringing the foot of the bed up and the head flat.

"I can't see the TV," Guthrie complained.

"Well, you should have eaten your dinner," Donna replied absently. She clipped the plastic clothespin thing - Hannah called it a "pulse-ox" - back on Guthrie's finger. Ford was watching her like a hawk but as far as Evan could tell she was just checking Guthrie over. "Are you having any pain?" she asked.

Guthrie's eyes slid over to Ford, then back to Evan. "Not really,"

Evan knew he was lying. Before he could say anything, Ford snapped, "Tell her the _truth,_ Guthrie."

Ford sounded like Adam then. Guthrie nodded, saying, "I guess. Some."

"Guthrie! Why would you lie about that?" Evan exploded.

Donna waved him to silence. "Guthrie," she said kindly, "I know you want to go home, but you have to work with us here. How do you think I'd feel if I let you go home and you weren't well yet? How would your family feel?"

Guthrie looked down. "Not good, I guess."

"Exactly. So, let's try this again. Where do you hurt?"

"My back, mostly. I think I'm just tired of laying here. My stomach aches a little, too, but mostly my back."

"On a scale of one to ten-" Donna started. Guthrie finished it for her.

"With one being very little pain and ten being the worst pain I've ever felt in my life," he parroted. "I guess… maybe a six?"

That scared Evan. Of course, he wasn't sure what Guthrie called _the worst pain he'd ever felt in his life_. When he fell from the hayloft, maybe? Or when he'd slipped on those rocks and broken his ankle, what was he, maybe eight when that happened? He'd had a concussion once…

Donna produced an oxygen mask from somewhere and settled it on Guthrie's face. "I need you to just be quiet and breathe for awhile," she said gently. She looked at Evan and Ford. "Keep his feet up, and his head down. He's doing okay, I just want the resident to look at him, okay?"

**7Bf7B**

The resident, at least that's who Evan assumed he was, had bright red hair and milk white skin and looked about twenty. Maybe. But he was gentle as he checked Guthrie over and murmured something in a low voice to Donna. When he was ready to leave he gestured for Evan and Ford to follow him from the room.

By that time Evan was literally ready to climb the walls. Or punch a hole in one. "What's wrong?" he fired as soon as the door closed. "What's wrong with him?"

The doctor - Evan hadn't caught his name - held up one hand. "Calm down. Okay? His blood pressure is a little too low and he's not getting quite enough oxygen."

"What about the pain?" Ford demanded.

"I've ordered something for that. Look guys, I know you're worried. I know he's your little brother. But we just have to treat things as they come, okay? His pulse is good and strong and his fever is down from earlier today. Donna's going to put him back on the monitors and we'll keep an eye on him tonight. I don't think it's anything too bad. I'll call Dr. Marino and let him know, but honestly, he's probably just picked up a virus or something. I'm not worried."

Dr. Whatever might not be worried but _Evan_ was. More than worried, scared. He kept thinking that Guthrie had been alone with him and Ford the night all this started and now they were here alone with him again. "Should we call our family?"

The doctor shrugged. "I'm not going to tell you you can't, but I don't think it's necessary."

"It's almost ten," Ford said then, startling Evan because how had it gotten to be that late?

He was torn. Something was telling him to call home, now, but the doctor said there was nothing to worry about. All Evan could think of was that Adam had early morning teacher conferences and he didn't want him to have to come into Sonora tonight. Surely the doctor would know if there was a reason to call, right?

The doctor walked away and Evan looked at Ford. For some reason, he never really thought of Ford as his _little_ _brother_ although Ford was, of course, younger. Sort of like he never really thought of Daniel as his _big brother_ although Daniel could be quick to point out that he was.

"Carla will be on duty soon," Ford said. "She'll tell us the truth, if Donna and Dr. Dudley aren't."

Evan frowned. "His name is Dudley? He looks like it should be Howdy Doody."

It wasn't much of a joke but they both laughed and the tension eased some.

When they went back into the room, Donna had the monitors hooked up again and she'd given Guthrie something for the pain. He was blinking sleepily. He looked so little and young surrounded by all the equipment that Evan felt his breath catch in his throat.

They were all protective of Guthrie. He'd been so young, not much more than a baby, really, when their parents had died. He had no memories of them, not one that hadn't been told to him by someone else.

The time around his parents' death and funeral had been mercifully blurred for Evan by grief and shock. Only seven himself, he'd been convinced that maybe if he prayed hard enough, wished hard enough, maybe they would come back, maybe it wouldn't be true that they were gone forever. Everything about that time was just a haze of tears and fear and muddled thoughts.

He had one crystal clear memory, though.

_It was the night of the funeral. Finally, finally, all the people were gone, the friends and the neighbors and the strangers that Evan didn't know. It was just them in the house, the brothers, all that was left of their family._

_Adam and Brian were sitting across from each other at the table, just staring down at a pile of papers. Evan had never known what they were looking at although he realized now it must have been insurance documents or something like that._

_Crane was sitting on the couch with Daniel on one side and Ford on the other.. Crane's eyes were red-rimmed but he'd stopped crying. He strummed a guitar - the old one that had belonged to their mother - just strummed it randomly, not really trying for a tune._

_Daniel sat next to him, an angry Daniel who had yelled and hit out at anyone who tried to talk to him all day. Ford was on the other side, tears still leaking out of his swollen eyes._

_Evan knew he was sitting in the rocking chair, the one his mom had rocked them all in, at one time or another. He couldn't really remember what he was doing, just that he was so lonely, so lost._

_Guthrie had been sleeping on another sofa. Evan looked up when he realized the baby was awake, and toddling around, and no one had noticed. He started to say something, but then he heard Guthrie's little voice._

_"Mama. Mama."_

_He wasn't crying, just kept saying her name in a sad, lost plaintive voice. Evan felt shivers down his spine. He had to do something, something to stop that voice._

_Adam got up slowly from the table and started toward Guthrie. Before he could pick him up, though, Daniel moved and swung Guthrie up in his own arms. "She's not here anymore, Guthrie," Daniel said, his voice soft and gentle for the first time in days. "She had to leave. She didn't want to, but she had to go away."_

_Evan felt the tears start to clog his throat and spill from his eyes again. He wiped them away, but more just replaced them._

_"Mama?" Guthrie asked, staring up at Daniel's face._

_Daniel dropped heavily into a chair with their baby brother in his arms. "She's gone, Guthrie."_

_Guthrie looked around at all of them, at Adam who was reaching for him, at all of his brothers. His eyes were sad and somehow old suddenly. "Mama," he said again, in his little voice. "Mama. Good-bye."  
_

**7Bf7B**

Evan jerked awake suddenly, sitting up on the cot and wincing at the screech of the tortured metal.

He sat quietly, his heart racing, trying to figure what had torn him from slumber.

Everything seemed normal. The room was darkened, with only the lights on the monitors blinking and one light above the bed. Guthrie was asleep in the bed. Ford slumbered in the recliner in the corner, half turned on his side and the blanket pulled up around his shoulder.

Evan and Ford had argued earlier over who would sleep where. The recliner was comfortable; the cot, a medieval torture device. Evan had insisted Ford had more trouble falling asleep and he should take the comfortable bed. Ford had argued a little bit but finally agreed. Maybe because Evan so rarely pulled the "older brother" card with Ford, Ford responded when he did. Ford had dozed off almost as soon as he'd settled in the recliner. Evan hadn't meant to fall asleep - one of the reasons he'd taken the cot - but somehow he had. He moved closer to the hospital bed to see his watch in the faint lighting. After one in the morning. He'd been asleep almost two hours; the last thing he remembered was Carla coming in right after shift change. Carla hadn't seemed very happy with Guthrie's vitals. She'd said Dr. Marino had called in and ordered some new medicine, including a new antibiotic, and that Guthrie's fever hadn't risen any.

"He's holding his own, Evan," the nurse tried to reassure him.

Evan frowned; he hated sayings like that. "Something's wrong," he pointed out. "He was doing fine, and now he's back on the oxygen and he's hurting…"

Carla sighed, running a hand through her long ponytail. "Medicine isn't an exact science. Everyone wants to think it is, but it's not. There's a lot about the human body we don't know yet. Guthrie recovered so quickly; we all just wanted to believe everything would progress fine. This is a setback, but there's nothing to say it's a big setback. Dr. Marino isn't that worried, if he was, he'd be back in here, no matter how late it was or how long his day was. You know that. Dr. Meade is the same way."

"Where's Doctor Howdy Doody?" Evan asked.

Carla frowned, then she started laughing. "Oh, please, you have to call him that to his face sometime!" She shook her head. "Dr. Dudley is in the on-call lounge, asleep, I imagine. He's left word for us to wake him if Guthrie's condition changes in any way."

So now Evan was trying to figure out what had woken him up. It obviously wasn't Ford; besides, Evan shared a room with Ford and was used to any sounds he might make during the night. Guthrie-

Guthrie moaned.

The hair on the back of Evan's neck stood straight up.

"Guthrie?" he whispered, coming closer to the bed and laying a hand on his brother's face. He yanked his hand back.

Guthrie's cheeks and forehead were slick with perspiration and icy-cold.

"Guthrie!" Evan repeated, louder now, lunging for the switch to turn the overhead lights on. "Guthrie, wake up!" He shook his youngest brother, but Guthrie's eyelids didn't even flicker. His skin looked eerily pale in the dim light. "Ford!" Evan yelled. He rounded the bed, intent on grabbing the call light on the other side, when he slipped on something and fell hard, butt first, to the floor. He put his hand down on the floor to push up, and his hand scrabbled in something thick and viscous. A rusty-iron odor assaulted his nostrils.

"Evan?" The light flicked on with Ford's voice.

Evan looked at his hand. It was covered with blood. He looked around, barely hearing Ford yelling his name again, barely noticing Ford running from the room.

Blood, dark crimson in the acrid light, soaked the sheets and blankets of the bed; puddle on the floor. He'd slipped in the blood. Blood drenched the worn sweat pants he'd put on for sleeping.

Not his blood.

Guthrie's blood.

Carla ran in with Ford at her heels. Carla whirled around and went straight back out again, calling for help, _"Stat!"_ Ford, his face as white as his hair, eyes huge, hauled Evan up and away from the bed, just as the door opened and people poured in.

Snatches of words, of faces, grim and intent. Words that made no sense to Evan, that he wouldn't even remember until much later, words that followed him hours later into restless sleep and shrieked in his nightmares.

The door flying open again and the redheaded Dr. Dudley running in, his clothes rumpled and his hair standing like a haystack, as if he had just been pulled from his bed. More commands, tersely given. It seemed like there should be shouts, yelling, but Evan couldn't seem to hear much over the roaring in his ears. He was vaguely aware of Ford standing next to him, gripping his arm; that he was trying to wipe his bloody hands on his pants. He couldn't take his eyes off Guthrie. His baby brother was so white, so still.

Was he even alive?

Then, suddenly, the mob of people surrounding the bed were moving, shoving, pushing the bed out of the room and rushing away, taking Guthrie somewhere. Leaving Evan alone with Ford, his brother's blood soaking his clothes and drying in crimson puddles on the bright white tile floor.

_To be continued..._


	10. Chapter 10

**Ten: Two Steps Up…  
**

They took both vehicles. Adam drove the truck, Hannah and Brian in the cab with him. Crane and Daniel followed in the Jeep.

It was a cold, clear night. Stars hung low in the velvet blackness of the sky. Sunrise was still hours away.

Daniel hadn't said anything since they'd left the house; hadn't said anything while they were yanking on clothes and boots and jackets in their shared room after the phone call from the hospital. Now, though, as they started to cross the long bridge over the water that divided Carbon from Tuolumne County, Daniel broke the silence.

"If Guthrie dies I'm going to kill Dr. Meade."

It was the way he said it, so coldly, so matter-of-fact. Crane knew, in that moment, that Daniel truly meant what he said. He knew how Daniel felt.

Crane felt the same way.

"Guthrie isn't going to die," he said.

Daniel's voice cracked now, the tears audible beneath. "Crane, he's _hemorrhaging."_

"I know. I know. But he's right there at the hospital. They took him right into surgery. He'll be…fine." Crane hoped he sounded positive. Fact was, he was terrified himself. Hemorrhaging sounded bad. Really bad. Crane couldn't remember, even those first days when Drs. Marino and Mayer were listing all that could go wrong, had anybody ever mentioned the risk of Guthrie hemorrhaging? Was that because it was unexpected? Was it a sign something else was wrong, more than they knew?

"It's all Meade's fault. He didn't treat Guthrie right!"

Now Daniel sounded less like an icy cold revenge killer and more like a frantic kid panicking about his brother. Daniel could do that, swing from one end to the other, be an adult one-minute and a kid the next. Brian sometimes muttered it was like living with a hormonal female. Course he'd stopped saying that so much since Hannah had overheard him.

Part of it was Daniel's age, Crane knew. He was eighteen and a senior in high school, literally caught between boy and man. But part of it had to do with their parents' deaths.

Daniel was the middle child of the family, and so very much in the middle when it came to losing their parents. Unlike Evan, Ford and Guthrie, who had only some treasured few memories -if any at all - of their parents, Daniel remembered them vividly. He remembered what it was like to be a member of a proper family, with two parents and seven sons.

After the accident, Adam and Brian, and yes, Crane himself, had stepped overnight into adulthood. Oh, Crane wasn't even a teenager yet, but he had taken on adult responsibilities. It wasn't that Adam and Brian tried to dump them on him, he had assumed them on his own. Caring for the younger children. Making meals. Giving baths. Tucking them into bed. Trying to learn, even then, how to help run the ranch and make it profitable. He'd taken over paying the bills and managing the checkbook right away. He'd studied hard, so hard, graduating a year early, winning a scholarship and then cramming four years of college into three. Adam and Brian had wanted him to go to college, but studying both animal husbandry and business, the rest of it, that had all been his idea, his way to help his family. His share of the parental responsibilities.

He smiled to himself, remembering the day he got the scholarship letter from UC Davis. He'd been so excited, then so scared. He'd tried to explain to Adam and Brian why he couldn't go. He had to balance the checkbook. He remembered asking Adam, _"Do you even know what it looks like?"_

Daniel was different. Unlike Evan, Ford and Guthrie, who'd desperately needed parenting, or Adam, Brian and Crane, who were trying to parent, Daniel was stuck in the middle. A hurting child missing his parents one minute; uncannily acting like an adult in a kid's body the next minute. And angry. So angry.

If it hadn't been for the music, they might have lost Daniel back then.

Losing Daniel to the anger and the hate had been one of Adam's biggest fears back then. Maybe it still was. Maybe that was why their oldest brother was so passive-aggressive about Daniel's choice of a musical career, trying to tie him to the ranch and the family even as he encouraged Daniel to form a band; to take on local gigs.

Crane was aware his thoughts were skipping, random ideas popping in and out of his head as he concentrated on the road and desperately tried not to think of his baby brother bleeding out in the hospital…

"Evan and Ford are falling apart right now."

Daniel again, that voice of certainty back. And he was probably right. Crane could only imagine what was going on with Evan and Ford, alone at the hospital; actually being there when Guthrie was rushed into surgery. For the first time he wondered why one of them hadn't called home. Brian hadn't said much when he hung up the phone, they were all too busy just rushing to get out of there, but he had definitely stated it was a social worker who had called, not one of their brothers.

"Why did he do it, Crane?"

Crane frowned, not following Daniel's train of thought. Unusual for them, they usually were on the same page. "Who?"

"Meade. Why didn't he…why didn't he send Guthrie to the hospital? Why did he just let this happen?"

Tears sprung to Crane's eyes at Daniel's plaintive tone. Angrily he blinked them away, staring at the taillights of the pickup in front of him. "I don't know," he sighed. It wasn't like the topic hadn't come up before, many times, in the past week. "Maybe he just didn't know any better." It sounded thin to Crane's own ears. He couldn't help the fearful whisper that had plagued him for days now. _Maybe he didn't send him to the hospital because he knew we couldn't afford it…_

Daniel snorted. "He's a doctor. He's supposed to know better." There was no forgiveness in that voice.

Crane was afraid what would happen if Guthrie- he shied away from the thought. He'd already mentioned to Adam they should sue Meade for malpractice. Cover Guthrie's hospital bills, if nothing else. Crane wanted to see Meade out of business. But if something happened, if Guthrie didn't make it… Crane knew his own grief and anger would be terrible, but Brian, Adam, even Daniel and Evan, they were more physical. They could easily -

He'd have to save them from themselves.

"I think maybe he paid Guthrie's hospital bill," he heard himself blurt out.

"What? Crane, what are you talking about?"

"Somebody paid the hospital bill. Well, the bill as of this morning." And oh, he hated the business-part of his mind, ever aware of the bottom line, which reminded him the medical bills would start piling up again now. Guthrie's student insurance policy - and thank God the local school system offered those - would be exhausted now…

"You think Meade paid the hospital bill? You said earlier it was the Barretts." There was sheer astonishment in Daniel's voice. "Why the hell would he?"

Their mother had never tolerated cussing, or vulgarity in any form. After she died though, they were a household of men and what Crane's tenth grade English teacher called scatological euphemisms riddled their speech. Not in school, and of course not in church, but at home - yeah. Crane didn't think any of them really noticed it until Hannah's first night at the ranch when Guthrie had yelled out, _"Pass the damn bread!"_

Honestly, Crane didn't know who looked more shocked, Hannah or Adam.

The language around the house had been cleaned up recently. Hannah wasn't nearly like their mother, but she did disapprove of youngsters cussing. And, as Adam told Brian and Crane one night over beers, it wasn't like he could punish Evan, Guthrie or Ford for what the rest of them did all the time. So they made an effort, around the younger boys, in the house, in front of Hannah. That didn't mean when Brian had sliced his hand on barbed wire the other day he didn't respond with a rousing, _"Oh, fu-!"_

"Why do you think Meade paid the bill?" Daniel insisted.

Crane realized his mind was wandering again and grimly forced himself to concentrate on driving and Daniel.

"Somebody paid it," he pointed out. "Maybe Dr. Meade felt, I don't know, guilty?" Why he was trying so hard to defend a man he'd never liked he didn't know. Well, he did know. If Guthrie died-

_He is NOT going to die!_ He told himself fiercely.

But if he did. Or if he was left permanently injured…

Crane had always known his older brothers were capable of violence, if provoked. He'd always been glad, in a secret corner of his mind, that the truck driver who had killed their parents had been killed himself in the accident. Adam had maybe let himself grieve for ten minutes before he focused on holding the family together. Admirable, but he'd paid for it in the long run. Adam responded to fear with anger, to anger with violence. Not that he'd ever turned the violence on any of his brothers. No, he was more likely to punch a wall and break his hand, or go throw himself into hours of hard ranch work and be stiff as a board in the morning. Crane wondered if he was the only one who remembered the Adam of before the accident, the even-tempered, popular jock who excelled at football, at basketball, at riding and ranch work; who seemingly had it all but still was loving toward his huge family and willing to drop everything to help one of his little brothers. He'd missed his own prom because somebody-who was it? Ford or Evan, had his tonsils out. Something had happened, Crane couldn't quite remember what, and … it was Evan, he was sure, had had to spend the night in the hospital. Adam had stayed with him, freeing up his parents to go home and get some rest. And instead of being furious with him, Adam's date had gone to the hospital in her gown and Adam had once told him, after Evan fell asleep, she and Adam danced around the hospital room to music on the radio.

Brian was different. Brian's temper was always near the surface and he tended to fight first, ask questions later, if at all. And Brian had changed with the accident too. He was rabidly protective of his family, of his younger brothers. Brian wouldn't think, wouldn't reason…he would react. And react harshly.

Evan - Evan was a combination of Adam and Brian. As good humored as he was hot tempered. But if Guthrie died, Evan would react like Brian, and it could be deadly.

And Daniel-

_Stop thinking like that!_ He railed at himself. What was wrong with him? He was already assuming the worst and coming up with plans to keep his brothers from committing murder. As if they would!

But they could. Or could they? Given the right provocation-

Desperately, Crane dragged his thoughts away and concentrated on here and now. Driving. Driving and Daniel and - what had Daniel said? _Oh, the bill..._

"Somebody paid it," he repeated lamely.

There was silence, and then Daniel said, very quietly, "I think, maybe, it was Wheeler."

This surprised Crane so much he almost hit the brakes. He turned to stare at Daniel in the darkness. "Wheeler? Russ Wheeler? Are you crazy? He's been trying to run us out of business for years. Why would he pay Guthrie's hospital bill?"

He felt, rather than saw, Daniel shrug. "He was there today. At the hospital. Guthrie told me he came early this morning, I guess after he dropped Mrs. Wheeler and Cleo at church. He brought Guthrie some books. Guthrie said he was nice. Like before."

"Before what?" Then Crane caught on.

He'd been at Davis when Wheeler's youngest son - Guthrie's best friend - had been killed. Daniel had called him, though, an almost incomprehensible phone call about rockslides and blood and not being able to find Guthrie, and Brian and Adam out on the rescue crew. Crane hadn't really known what had happened until he'd arrived home in the middle of the night after borrowing a dorm-mate's car. By that time both boys had been found in the rubble, Guthrie was in the hospital and Paul Wheeler was dead.

Crane remembered the funeral. It was the first child's funeral he'd ever been to and he remembered thinking the coffin was so tiny. Guthrie was still in the hospital but he was out of danger and all six of the remaining McFaddens went to the service. Daniel and Crane sang Amazing Grace, with Crane playing the guitar. Mrs. Wheeler had asked them to sing and it just didn't seem right to refuse her. But Crane was anxious every minute of the funeral, unable to look for too long at the coffin, and he noticed his brothers were the same. He knew they were all thinking the same thing; it could so easily have been Guthrie in that coffin. And even though they grieved the death of a child, of a child that had been part of their life, all of them harbored relief that it wasn't their brother, their loss, in that coffin. Crane remembered looking up once, and catching Del Wheeler's eye. And somehow he knew that the older Wheeler son had known exactly what he was thinking.

"I don't-" he started, and then stopped because he didn't know what to say. Wheeler had the money. There was no doubt about that. But would he do it? Why would he do it?

They didn't say anything else as the lights of the hospital blurred into being.

**7Bf7B**

It wasn't until they all looked at each other in the ER - the main entrance of the hospital was closed at this hour- that Crane realized they had no idea where to go.

Surgery - with its huge impersonal waiting room - was on the third floor. But was that where Evan and Ford would be? Crane was still surprised neither one of them had called. On the other hand, he couldn't imagine how very upset both of them would be right now.

"They're probably still in Pediatrics," Daniel said quietly.

Adam looked at him, then he shook his head. "No," he said, heading toward the bank of elevators. "No, they won't be. They'll be on Three."

"How do you know?" Daniel snapped. Crane gripped his arm. They were all worn down and upset but no one needed Adam and Daniel yelling at each other in the middle of the hospital.

Brian spoke then, the first thing he'd said since they'd got there. "Think about it, Dan'l. If it was you, not them, where would you be?"

Tears filled Daniel's eyes and he reached out and gripped Adam's shoulder. "I'd be as close to Guthrie as I could possibly get."

**7Bf7B**

The third floor waiting room was huge, spread out on both sides of the elevator. The carpeting was gray and the shapeless furniture was in shades of mauve and blue, with wooden cubes as tables of some light wood. The furniture was organized somehow so that it looked like multiple small, separate areas. Each area had a television bolted to the wall near the ceiling. At the far end of the room, between big double doors that were labeled, NO ADMITTANCE, there was a large semicircular desk with one lone hospital worker sitting behind it. In spite of it being the wee hours of the morning, the room was brightly lit. No darkness for sleeping in this part of the hospital.

Crane saw them first, Ford and Evan, huddled together on one of the shapeless sofas. Ford was wearing a worn white t-shirt and gray sweat pants that Crane recognized as being his, from his UC Davis days. Evan, oddly, was wearing blue surgical scrubs and had a hospital-issue blanket around his shoulders. The two of them were looking down. Crane wondered if they were praying.

He heard Adam say their names, barely recognized his voice as their oldest brother charged across the room. Ford and Evan looked up, and then somehow all of them were together, all six of the brothers and Hannah, locked in a hug in the middle of the vast room.

Ford had tears running down his face and Evan was openly sobbing, gasping out, "Adam, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" He just kept repeating the words, clinging to Adam, unable to say anything else.

"Hey, it's okay. Sssh, it's okay, Evan, please," Adam murmured, trying to calm their hysterical sibling. Daniel had moved now and was next to Ford. Ford just standing there, face white, eyes enormous, tears spilling down his cheeks.

Evan dropped something on the floor and Crane bent over to pick it up. It was a bag - one of the hospital garbage bags with something inside. Not really thinking about it, Crane opened the bag, reached in and pulled out a T-shirt.

It was an old shirt, worn soft from many washings, the print faded, but Crane still recognized it as the Philadelphia 76ers shirt Adam's friend Hoops had sent him the first year Hoops had been on the team. Hoops had misjudged the size, or maybe Adam just didn't like the shirt. Whatever, the shirt had made its way through most of the family. Crane remembered Guthrie wearing it as a sleep shirt, years back, when he was so small it hung around his knees. Crane had seen it recently, though, just that morning. Was it even possible it was still the same day? Evan had come into the hospital room that morning with a canvas tote, and when Crane asked him what was in it, the younger brother had pulled out the shirt and some other soft clothes. _"So Ford and I have something to sleep in tonight,"_ he'd explained.

Crane frowned. Evan must have spilled something on the shirt, because it was stiff with drying liquid. Brownish-red stains covered the lower part of the shirt and what looked like a handprint in the same stuff was smeared at the shoulder. It couldn't have been that long ago because the it was still damp; Crane's fingers were covered in it. What the hell - it looked almost like -

Blood.

The thought hit him at the same time the rusty-iron scent assaulted his nostrils. Crane took one horrified look at Evan, still in Adam's arms, and suddenly realized whose blood it had to be.

"Guthrie." He said the name aloud. He didn't mean to, didn't even know he was going to until he heard the words coming from his mouth. Nausea churning his gut, his head spinning, he turned and ran toward the bathrooms as fast as he could go.

No one else was in the cold, tiled room as Crane hurtled into the first cubicle and fell to his knees in front of the toilet, the shirt still clutched in his hand. He retched helplessly, unaware of the tears leaking out of his eyes.

He didn't even realize someone was with him until he felt a hand rub soothing circles on his back. Another hand braced his head as he vomited until nothing was left, until dry heaves shook his body.

He knew it had to be one of his brothers, felt vaguely ashamed that Daniel would see him like this, and then realized it wasn't Daniel with him. It was Brian's voice that whispered soothingly to him, Brian's hands that braced him.

Later, when it was over, when he slumped bonelessly to the floor, Brian disappeared for a second and then was back with a paper cup of water and a mass of wet paper towels. "Here," he said, handing Crane the cup. "Swish your mouth out, then take a drink. You know the drill." The sodden mass of paper towels came to rest on the back of his neck. He welcomed the chill against his hot skin.

"What happened, huh?" Brian asked quietly. "Did it just get to be too much?"

Crane took a careful sip of water, then a larger sip when the first stayed down. He shook his head. "I found this," he said, realizing he was still holding the bloody shirt. Just the thought of it made his stomach cramp up again.

Brian took it from him and Crane could see the second it dawned on his brother's face what it was. He stood then, taking the shirt, and walked away. Crane could hear the sound of rustling and a banging of metal, and then Brian was back without the shirt, wedging himself back into the small cubicle by Crane's side. His face was white and there were tight lines etched into his forehead and around his mouth, but he didn't say anything, just sat quietly next to Crane. He had more wet towels and this time he ran them over Crane's face and forehead.

"You should be with the babies," Crane said half-heartedly, grateful for his brother's nearness.

It was what they had called the youngest three, ever since the accident, when it just got too much to say "Evan, Ford and Guthrie" all the time. _The babies_. Even now, when Ford and Evan were in high school and Guthrie, as he reminded them all the time, was twelve years old, Crane still thought of them that way. The babies.

Not Daniel though. Daniel would have hated being referred to that way. Daniel was always alone, in the middle. Not really alone, though, because Crane was always nearby, standing close in case his brother - his brother, his best friend, needed him.

Thinking of Daniel, of Ford and Evan, Crane tried to pull himself together. His hands were shaking and his eyes filled with tears. Brian put a solid hand on his back.

"Adam's got the babies," Brian said gently. "Hannah's got Daniel. And I've got you. Stop being a big brother for a minute, Crane. Let me be your big brother."

He and Brian didn't always get along. Hardly ever agreed about anything. But they were brothers - always.

A bond that could never be broken.


	11. Chapter 11

**_Eleven: Two More Steps Up…  
_**

Adam rubbed his burning eyes. Exhaustion dragged at him, making his very bones ache. It seemed like they had been here for days, sitting on this soft, formless furniture, drinking bad coffee from the vending machine down the hall. The waiting room had been virtually empty when they'd arrived, but more and more people were coming in now, staking out their places, waiting on word of their own loved ones. As he - as his family - was waiting on news of Guthrie.

Twice during the night, the woman behind the large desk had called his name and he'd gone to her, desperate with hope and worry, wanting some news, some information. All she had to say, both times, was that the surgery on Guthrie was proceeding and that he was still alive. She didn't say it that way, but that was basically the gist. She had mentioned that Dr. Marino had come in and was in the operating room with Guthrie, although a surgeon he'd never heard of was doing the actual operation. She had mentioned in a kindly manner that Guthrie needed a lot of blood, and that he was one of the more rare types - B positive - and if any family members would like to donate, she was sure the blood bank downstairs would be glad to take their blood when they opened at nine.

He glanced at the large clock on the wall. Almost seven. There were no windows in the impersonal room, so he couldn't see the rising sun. At the ranch, morning chores would be waiting, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He sure wasn't going to send any of his family home to take care of them now.

Hannah was curled next to him, her head resting on his shoulder, shoes kicked off and feet tucked underneath her body. He didn't think she was really asleep - her breathing was too fast and light - but he hoped she was getting some kind of rest. Evan was on the other side of him, his flushed cheek resting against Adam's knee, the tracks of dried tears on his sleeping face.

He'd never managed to get much out of Evan - or Ford for that matter - about exactly what had happened to Guthrie. Evan had sobbed for over an hour before he finally had slid into sleep. The only thing he'd said was that he was sorry, over and over again. Ford had managed a little more, but apparently he'd been asleep until Evan's yelling had woken him up. All he could say was that he'd woke up when Evan screamed his name and there was blood everywhere. Ford had run for the nurse and then _"The room was full of people and then they were taking Guthrie away and they wouldn't tell us anything, just to come down here and wait."_

He glanced at the sofa opposite. Ford was lying down with his head on Daniel's lap. Daniel leaned his head back against the wall, eyes closed, one hand resting on Ford's head. He looked to be asleep, but Ford's eyes were open and he stared unblinkingly at the ceiling.

Crane was sitting next to Daniel on the other side. Neither he, nor Brian, had said why Crane had raced away earlier, Brian right behind him, but Adam had a feeling he knew. The one thing Ford could say, repeatedly, was how much blood there was. _"All over the bed. It was on the floor, it was all over Evan…"_ There wasn't any blood on Evan now, and he was wearing blue cotton scrubs, like the hospital people wore. Adam had a feeling Crane had found Evan's bloody clothes. He didn't ask. To be honest, Adam wasn't sure he _wanted_ to know.

Evan falling apart like he had scared Adam even more than he was already. Evan was a tough kid. He always had been. Since he'd hit his teens, he'd grown more like Brian, more likely to blow up than shed a tear. If Adam thought hard, the only time he could remember Evan crying in the last five years was when his beloved horse, Diablo, had been injured and they'd feared they'd have to put him down.

Even that was nothing close to the reaction Evan showed now.

"I've been thinking," Ford said abruptly. It was the first thing any of them had said in an hour or more.

Crane cast tired eyes over to their younger brother. "About what?" His voice was hoarse.

"Why didn't the monitors go off?" Ford sat up, his fists clenched. "All that blo-" he choked off the word. "Why didn't the alarms go off? The doctor said they were hooking Guthrie back up to all the monitors. Shouldn't they have known he was…"

"When did they put him back on all the monitors?" Crane asked.

Ford frowned, obviously thinking. "It was… after we ate. But before Carla came on duty. We were watching a movie, and Guthrie got cold. Evan went to get him a blanket, and then the nurse came in to check Guthrie's vitals." The confused expression disappeared. "Guthrie was _hurting,_" he breathed. "He said his back was really hurting. The nurse called somebody, I think he was a resident. Dr…Dudley. Yeah that was it. He said Guthrie's blood pressure was a little low and he wasn't getting enough oxygen. They put all the monitors back on. I think they gave Guthrie something for the pain, or maybe to make him sleep. Anyway he fell asleep not too long after and then Evan and I…I went to sleep in the recliner." He shook his head. "But I would have heard the alarms going off. They didn't."

"All that happened and neither one of you thought to call home?" Adam hissed.

He could have bitten off his tongue when Ford's horrified eyes swung back to him, then filled with tears. "We…we were going to. But the doctor said it wasn't anything. Just a virus maybe. We should have called you. Maybe then-"

Adam shook his head. "Ford, no, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that-" _If I'd been there, maybe things would have been different._ But he couldn't say that to Ford. He and Evan had done the best they could. If the doctor on duty didn't think anything was really wrong-

But he obviously knew _something_ was wrong. He put Guthrie back on the monitors.

"Ford's right," Crane said. He stood up and came around to Ford's other side, sitting down and putting his arm around him. His eyes met Adam's. "There was a lot of blood," he said quietly. He didn't explain how he knew and Adam didn't question him. "A _lot_ of blood, Adam. He had to have been bleeding for-" he bit back the words. "Why didn't the monitors go off?"

"The lead came unhooked," a feminine voice said.

Adam swung around to find Carla, the Pediatrics nurse, standing behind them. She was carrying some clothes in her arms, which she laid down on one of the chairs. Adam assumed they were the clothes Evan and Ford had worn to church - and to the hospital - the day before. Carla took a deep breath.

"We had the alarms silenced in Guthrie's room," she said. "We do that, a lot, when there are family members staying the night. Even when the kids are alone. The monitors make a lot of noises, even if everything is normal. It scares people, keeps the kids from sleeping. We have them set so if they go off, the lights will flash, but there won't be any alarms, not in the room. They ring up at the nurses' station."

She bit her lip. "After - well, after Guthrie was sent to surgery, Dr. Dudley and one of the other nurses tried to figure out what had happened. It was a connection, to the monitor at the station. It was loose. We never heard the alarms go off. I had checked Guthrie maybe an hour before. I was on my way back to check him again when Ford ran out of the room. I am so sorry."

"You're not supposed to be telling us all this, are you?" Hannah asked gently. Adam jumped. He'd been unaware that his wife had sat up.

Tears welled up in Carla's brown eyes. "Probably not. But I had to." She looked directly at Ford. "It wasn't your fault, you know. Or Evan's."

"It was!" Evan yelled, sitting up.

Adam startled; he hadn't realized Evan was awake.

She looked at him steadily. "No, it wasn't, Evan. You didn't hurt him. You saved him."

**7Bf7B**

It was maybe a half-hour after Carla left that Dr. Mayer showed up. He looked tired, his cheeks flushed from the cold air outside.

"I heard what happened," he said as he approached them.

"Do you know how Guthrie's doing?" Adam asked.

The older man shook his head. "No more than you do. But they should be closing soon." He sat down. "Adam, I called Rick Pine. He's going to send a couple of his men over to your place to take care of the livestock. Said to tell you they would stay as long as you needed them."

Adam nodded. "Thanks." Rick Pine was a friend and Adam knew his men would be reliable. It was a relief, but somehow it didn't ease any of the tension he was feeling.

"What happened?" Crane asked the doctor. "He was getting better!"

Mayer shook his head. "I don't know, Crane. I do know Dr. Marino wasn't expecting this. I talked to him Saturday and he told me then that Guthrie would be going home in a few days."

"They put him back on the monitors last night," Ford said. "And they didn't work. One of the leads came loose."

Mayer eyed him keenly. "How do you know that?"

Nobody said anything. Adam knew they didn't want to get Carla into trouble for what she had told them. Mayer didn't ask any more.

**7Bf7B**

They were all awake, drinking coffee and hot chocolate Brian and Crane had retrieved from the cafeteria, when Dr. Marino and two other people approached. One was a woman, dressed in the blue scrubs of the hospital and with a white lab coat over them. Her short hair was disheveled, as if she'd just pulled off a hat or a cap and not smoothed it down. As she came closer, Adam could see she was older than she'd looked from a distance; maybe close to fifty. Fine lines etched the skin around her mouth and eyes. After a second, he forgot all about her and looked at Marino, desperate but terrified to hear what the man would say.

"He's alive," Marino said quietly.

Adam felt like someone had cut the strings of tension that had been keeping him going. He leaned back against the sofa, blinking tears from his eyes. Hannah squeezed his hand tightly and leaned against him. Evan made a funny noise in his throat and dropped his head. Adam saw him surreptitiously wipe his eyes.

"How is he?" Brian asked in a cracked voice.

There was a silence and Adam looked at Marino sharply. "Doc?"

Marino gestured to the woman next to him. "This is Carolyn Rhoades. She's the surgeon that operated on Guthrie." When Adam kept looking at him, barely glancing at the surgeon, Marino sat down next to Crane. Rhoades perched next to him on the table. The other man - Adam had no idea who he was, another doctor, he assumed - stepped back behind them.

"Guthrie was hemorrhaging badly," Dr. Rhoades started, her voice surprisingly soft. "He lost a lot of blood before we even got him on the table. Despite that, I think he's going to pull through."

That should have eased the tension that suddenly gripped the family, but it didn't. Adam glanced around. All of his brothers, and Hannah, were staring at the woman doctor, waiting for the rest of it. Adam knew there was more. He could almost hear the _"but"_ the surgeon did not say. And then, she said it.

"But-"

They waited. Adam couldn't breathe. It seemed like it took hours, although realistically he knew it was just seconds before she continued.

"Our focus was on saving his life. You understand that." It wasn't a question. She looked down at her hands, then back up and met Adam's eyes squarely. "I'm sorry. We did everything we could, but we couldn't save his kidneys. There was too much damage, too much bleeding. We had to remove one, and the other is too damaged to function."

The words were ringing around Adam's head, echoing and fading and making no sense. He struggled to think, to say anything, but he couldn't.

Crane could. "What does that mean for Guthrie?"

"For right now, he's going to have to be on dialysis. Three or four times a week, we'll know more in the next few days. He'll be in Recovery for a couple of hours, then he'll be going into Intensive Care."

"Pediatric Intensive Care is a little different from the other branches. They understand children need to see their pa- their families. I'll make arrangements for one of you to be with him at all times." That was Marino.

Adam managed to force words out of his numb mouth. "You said, for right now, he has to be on dialysis. What about, later? What does this mean for Guthrie, long term?"

Rhoades beckoned the other man - the one no one had introduced - and he stepped forward. "There is some good news," he stated, glancing around at the family. "Guthrie has six brothers. That means that statistically, at least one of you should be a match."

"A match?" Adam didn't know who asked that.

"I'm Barry Kauker. I'm head of the transplant team here at Sonora Regional. In a few weeks, Guthrie should be stronger and able to withstand another operation. If one of you is willing - and a match - we could transplant a kidney into him. If it is successful, Guthrie could live his life relatively normally."

"_If_ one of us is willing?" Brian demanded. "Hell, _I'm_ willing. Schedule that surgery, because if it can help Guthrie-"

"It's not that easy," Marino cautioned. "Any of you that want to volunteer will have to be tested. If one of you is a match and chooses to donate, you'll have to consider how that will affect your own life."

Adam looked around at his brothers. Every one of them met his eyes, and he knew what they were all thinking. He managed a shaky grin as he looked at the team of doctors. "Just tell us what we have to do. Because you've got six potential donors right here."

**7Bf7B**

Adam shifted restlessly in the uncomfortable chair, easing one set of aches and sending up protests from the other side of his body. Almost against his will, his eyes slid up again, to light on the bank of monitors above and around the bed. They apparently didn't believe in silencing them in ICU: Adam had been listening to beeps, and whirrs, and drumbeats, since he'd sat down next to Guthrie's bed two hours before.

Guthrie had yet to wake up. The nurse assigned to him - she was in and out of the cubicle constantly - had assured Adam that was normal. Guthrie's vital signs were good, she said, and he had woken briefly in recovery. "He's just sleeping," she stated. "He had a rough night."

What an understatement.

Adam tightened his hand around his baby brother's limp fingers. Guthrie didn't look like he was just sleeping. Wires, lines and tubes emerged from underneath the hospital-issue nightgown and traveled seemingly everywhere. Two or three IV lines fed into his right arm, and oxygen ran in a clear tube under his nose. A plastic packet of blood dripped into a tube in his left arm, which was secured to the bedrail with a length of soft cotton bandage. The plastic clothespin-like thing was clipped to his finger, and a blood-pressure cuff was attached to his upper arm on the same side. Every ten minutes the blood pressure cuff would inflate, there would be a another set of beeps, then the cuff would deflate and a second later, a new set of numbers would flash up on the monitor. Hannah would probably know if the numbers were good or bad or normal for a child right out of surgery, but Adam didn't. All he could go by was the nurse - she'd told Adam her name was Shirley - reassuring him Guthrie was _"Doing as well as could be expected right now."_

"Mr. McFadden?"

Startled, he looked up at the sound of his name and found Shirley standing next to him. "What? I'm sorry, I was -"

"You've been sitting in that chair for two hours," she said. "Why don't you get up and move around? Go out and get something to eat, see your family? I promise I'll tell you if anything changes. It will probably be hours before he wakes up."

Adam shook his head. If he went out into the waiting room he'd have to face his brothers, his wife, all looking at him, desperate for news, desperate to know Guthrie was all right, was going to be all right, and he couldn't tell them that. He didn't even believe it himself.

"Look. I know how uncomfortable that chair is. At least walk around for a bit."

"I need to be here," Adam said, even though he knew his brothers wanted to be here too. Adam couldn't leave Guthrie right now. He knew it was foolish, but he had a fear if he left Guthrie, if he even took his eyes off of him for a minute, Guthrie would slip away.

"You could take a break. Maybe his Mom would like to sit with him for awhile?"

Pain struck Adam then, an old pain, never really gone but somehow fresh in this place, this setting. "Our mother is dead," he said before he thought about it.

The nurse's eyes widened. "Oh. So you're his-"

"-Brother," Adam filled in.

"I thought you looked a little young to have a twelve year old," she mused. "I heard there're several McFaddens out in the waiting room. More brothers?"

Adam nodded. "Five more. And my wife. Our parents died about ten years ago."

"Ten years. And Guthrie's twelve? So you _are_ his father, in a way."

Adam shook his head. "Hardly. Just a poor imitation."

"I don't know about that." Her eyes studied him, then suddenly widened. "McFadden. Adam McFadden. Ten years ago. I remember now."

"Were you here that night?" Adam managed to ask through suddenly dry lips.

Instead of answering, she left the cubicle, returning a few minutes later with a real mug full of steaming coffee. "I made it myself," she said, handing it to him. "It's a lot better than what spews out of those vending machines and even the cafeteria." She looked quickly at the monitors and then leaned against the wall. "I was here that night. I didn't work regularly then, I had three little ones myself. I was part of the PRN pool, I'd work a couple of shifts a week, wherever they needed me. Usually nights, when my husband was home to watch the kids." She smiled faintly, then her face grew sober. "That night I was working in Maternity. But then they called up from ER. They were short anyway and there had been an accident out on the highway. They needed some help. I remember thinking I wasn't surprised about an accident. It was so foggy that night, the fog just rolled in so suddenly…"

Adam remembered. It had been clear when his parents had left, still sunny in the evening. When the sheriff started banging on the door at two a.m., he'd looked out the window and noticed the fog. Looked at the clock and wondered why his parents weren't answering the door. Never realized until he'd fumbled down the steps that they weren't home. That they'd never come home that night.

"One of the nurses was from Murphys. Or her parents were, I don't remember exactly. She knew your folks. She was pretty upset. She told me there were seven boys. One had just graduated high school and had won a scholarship to college." She looked at him. "That was you?"

Adam nodded. It seemed like another lifetime now, the scholarship, dreaming of college, planning on medical school. He couldn't remember when or why he'd decided to be a doctor, just that he'd been thinking of it for a couple of years. He'd studied so hard, especially in science classes. Brian thought it all came so easily to him but it didn't. Chemistry, especially, was tough, but he was determined to get a good grade, to maybe get a letter of recommendation from the teacher. "I'm glad I didn't get to be a doctor," he said suddenly, the words tumbling from his lips. "I'm glad I never had to tell somebody that their parents were gone." Except of course, he _had_ done that. He'd had to look at his brothers, his baby brothers, and tell them their parents were never going to come home.

"Looks like you did a good job to me," Shirley said quietly.

"You think so?" Adam challenged. "Look at my brother. Twelve years old and he-" he couldn't finish. "If my parents had lived this would never have happened."

"Hey, now, stop that," the nurse admonished him. "You don't know that. Look, I've got three kids myself. My daughter is about Guthrie's age. And she has two older brothers. My husband and I have a good marriage, and I stayed home with those kids until they were in school. We try to do everything right. Well, guess what? We can't. No one can. And no matter how careful we are, our kids get hurt, or get sick. Or fall in love and get their heart broken because the girl they liked went out with the quarterback of the football team. You can't always protect your kids, Mr. McFadden. Heck, they'd hate you if you tried." She patted his shoulder. "You drink that coffee. And I won't hear anymore of that rubbish." She nodded at Guthrie. "He needs you. Not your parents. He needs you."

She started to leave the cubicle, but Adam caught her hand. "Thank you," he said earnestly. "But please, don't call me Mr. McFadden anymore. My name is Adam."

Later, sitting there, still holding Guthrie's hand, he thought about that night. Not how it ended, but how it began, his mom dressed up in her favorite blue dress, his dad crisp and handsome in a jacket and slacks. His dad always took his mom out right before they left on round up. An evening out, just the two of them, no kids. Adam remembered saying to them it would be his last time babysitting for them. His mother laughed and reminded him it was summer, and was he not planning on coming home in the summers? _"I'll get plenty more babysitting out of you, young man!"_ she laughed.

Was that the last thing she'd said to him? What was the last thing he'd said to her? Had he told her he loved her? Probably not, because he was a boy, telling himself he was grown up, too old to say stuff like that. It never dawned on him he wouldn't get another chance to say _I love you_ to his parents.

If there was one thing the accident had taught Adam, taught the whole family, it was that there were no guarantees in life. No surety that there would be a tomorrow. The McFadden boys said _"I love you. I appreciate you. I value you,"_ to each other easily, sincerely and often. Adam had carried that into his marriage with Hannah. He told her he loved her daily, more than daily. He hoped she realized he wasn't just saying it because it was something to say, but because he meant it and needed her to know.

Just in case something ever happened.

Because he'd learned the hard way that sometimes tomorrow never comes.

He lost track of time, sitting there, lulled into a half-doze by the oddly comforting noises coming from the machines. Guthrie's hand stayed still under his own. He was so lost in thought that he jumped when someone touched him on the shoulder.

"Sorry, Adam," Daniel apologized, his eyes sliding over to Guthrie. His lips trembling, he started to reach toward their baby brother, but then his hand fell limply to his side. "How is he?" he asked, his voice choked with unshed tears.

"He's doing fine." Adam tried to be reassuring. "He's sleeping. What are you doing back here?"

Daniel tore his eyes from Guthrie. "You need to get out there, Adam. Hannah said so, too. I'll stay with Guthrie."

Chills crossed Adam's back. "Why? What's going on? Is it Evan?"

"No. Evan's fine, well as fine as any of us. But Brian -"

"What about Brian?"

"Russ Wheeler is here. And Mrs. Wheeler and Cleo."

Adam felt a chill race down his spine as Daniel went on, "And Brian…Brian is about ready to lose it."

_to be continued..._


	12. Chapter 12: One Step Down

_Twelve: One Step Down…  
_

Brian McFadden was not a man meant for sitting still. As a child, in school, he'd been constantly corrected by his teachers for being "antsy". He literally could not hold still. Sitting at his desk, doing math problems or reading, part of him had to be moving. He'd kick his legs in and out, doodle on his paper, crack his knuckles. Even when he _tried_ to be still, he couldn't manage it. He remembered loathing church when he was young; not because of any dislike of the Christian doctrine he was raised on, but because trying not to move during the pastor's hour plus long sermon sent shivers running up and down his back.

In this day and age, some kind teacher would probably have suggested his parents consider Ritalin, but back then his dad just suggested he "run off" all the extra energy. Growing up, Brian played every sport he could find, and then worked his butt off on the ranch. One of the reasons he'd taken over the cooking after their mother died was because - in those first shattered days after the accident - Adam and Crane were exhausted with all the new responsibilities that were heaped on them overnight. Brian, on the other hand, was full of nervous energy that had to find an outlet somewhere.

Now sitting and waiting in this room was hell on earth for him.

They'd moved from the waiting room on the surgery floor to the waiting room on the eighth floor, where the intensive care units were. Brian had never realized there were so many different kinds of intensive care. Signs at the elevator directed visitors one way to PICU and NICU; another way to CICU, SICU, and MICU. With the exception of PICU - which Dr. Marino had explained was "Pediatric Intensive Care Unit", Brian didn't know what the others stood for.

He pushed himself up from the hard plastic couch. Unlike the waiting room outside of Surgery - which a nurse had told them had been recently redecorated in "the latest colors and furniture"- apparently those shapeless sofas and chairs were the updated version of hospital décor, this waiting room looked unchanged from the waiting rooms of ten years ago. Everything was gray: gray walls, gray carpet, gray curtains at the tinted gray windows - and plastic. Rows of hard plastic chairs were bolted to each other and to the floor, interspersed here and there with a plastic table. Only thing that looked new were the color TVs mounted in the corners of the room. The whole place reminded Brian of the bus station in Angels Camp, when he'd been there dropping off or picking Crane up while he was in college.

He paced around the room aimlessly, counting heads. Adam was back with Guthrie; Brian understood his older brother needed to be there in spite of the fact his own soul was crying out to see their baby brother, to assure himself Guthrie was still alive, that he was going to be okay.

Crane and Daniel were talking in low voices, heads together, drawing strength from each other. Looking at them Brian was struck by a pang of - something - he wasn't sure what. Not really envy. Crane and Daniel were always close, from the time Crane had first laid eyes on his new baby brother, back when Crane was barely four years old himself.

Their mother had called it the steps. _You always feel a special love for the brother right above you and right below you,_ she had said. And in most ways it was true. Adam was Brian's best friend, always had been since he was old enough to know what a friend was. Crane and Daniel were close, almost like twins with a four-year age difference. Daniel was close to Evan too, although the two of them had some knock down drag out fights. Evan and Ford fit together like hand and glove although their personalities couldn't have been more dissimilar. And Ford could completely forget he was a teenager and romp with Guthrie like two puppies. There was a reason Guthrie had hit Ford up first for money when he was panning for gold.

Ford and Evan were as different as night and day but were still close to each other. Brian appreciated it, even though he couldn't understand it, because he and his "step lower": Crane, didn't have that kind of relationship and never had.

It wasn't that Brian didn't love Crane. He did. It was just that from the very beginning, he and Crane seemed to be on different tracks. Crane could read - really read, not just stumble through easy words - by the time he was four. Brian hated to read. It wasn't that he couldn't do it - there was nothing wrong with his brain - he just plain didn't want to. On the other hand, the chores around the ranch that Brian found so easy and so fulfilling were either difficult for the child Crane had been, or just not that interesting to him. And then, when Daniel had come along, Crane hadn't seemed to need Brian. Even after their parents had died, Crane had deferred to Adam when needed, but never, ever, to Brian.

Brian could admit - if only to himself - that sometimes he envied Crane. Envied him his brains, his talent, his way of reaching out to and understanding people. Adam called it _Crane's empathy_. He could put himself in other people's shoes, feel their hurts. Brian couldn't and wasn't even sure he wanted to.

He pushed the thoughts out of his mind - nothing new about them and surely not something he could deal with now - and went back to accounting for his family members. Adam was with Guthrie, Crane and Daniel were together, Evan sat next to Hannah. Neither one of them was talking, but they seemed to be okay for the moment. That just left -

_Ford._

Where was Ford? He'd been there when Brian had returned with coffee and sodas from the cafeteria. But was he there when Brian had come back from getting a breath of fresh air outside?

"Where's Ford?" he asked abruptly.

Everyone looked around, startled. Crane and Hannah immediately looked guilty and worried. But it wasn't their fault. Brian didn't expect Hannah to keep track of the boys - that wasn't her job - and Crane had been busy with Daniel. Brian should have been keeping an eye on Ford. His eyes rested on Evan.

"He said he needed to be alone for awhile," Evan volunteered. "I think he was going to find the chapel."

The chapel!

Brian turned and ran, ignoring the voices that called after him.

The hospital may have been remodeled some, but Brian knew where the chapel was. He had never forgotten it. It was in the chapel of Sonora Regional Hospital, ten years before, that his life had changed forever.

_Ten Years Ago:_

_"I thought we were going to the hospital?" Brian asked._

_The sheriff didn't look at him, just stared straight ahead at the foggy road, his hands on the steering wheel in that ten and two position they talked about in Driver's Ed. "We are, Brian."_

_Brian knew that couldn't be true. They'd already been on the road for a long time and it was only a thirty-minute drive to County Hospital from their house. Brian had been to County Hospital a lot. Every time his mom had given birth to another brother, and when Adam got a concussion playing football and Crane broke his leg playing soccer. Not to mention Danny, Evan and Ford all seemed to take turns eating something they shouldn't, or falling from someplace they weren't supposed to be, and ending up in the ER._

_He pulled Guthrie's pliant body closer to his own. The baby had gone back to sleep once they got in Mr. Barrett's big Suburban. Brian didn't understand why the sheriff was driving Tom Barrett's car; why Tom was just sitting in the passenger seat, staring out the window._

_But then, Brian didn't understand what was going on. Tom's wife, Carey, had woke him up and told him to help get the younger boys dressed. The downstairs had been full of people, the sheriff and two of his deputies, and Russ Wheeler and Marie from the diner in town and Mrs. Green, the pastor's wife. She'd told him Pastor Dave was at the hospital with Adam and that they all needed to go there to see him. She said, "Adam wants to see you at the hospital." But why was Adam at the hospital? And when had he gone? When Brian went up to bed, Adam was camped out on the sofa downstairs; kidding around about how he was going to wait up for their parents the way they always waited up for him._

_He looked around the car, checking on all of his little brothers. Crane was in the seat behind him, Daniel on one side and Evan on the other, both of them pressed up close to him. Crane's eyes met his eyes and they were scared. Ford, like Guthrie, had fallen back to sleep, his warm body snug against Brian's side. Brian could smell the baby shampoo Adam had used to wash both Ford and Guthrie's hair before bed._

_It had been such a fun evening. It always was when he and Adam baby-sat their younger brothers. As always, Mama had left dinner, this time one of her chicken and rice casseroles, which all the boys liked. But it didn't make any difference because Adam and Brian always had a special meal they made when their parents were gone. Their mom knew it; too, she always made sure the makings for the special meal were in the kitchen before she and Dad left for one of their rare evenings out. Brian didn't know why she always left something for dinner anyway when she knew they weren't going to eat it, but he'd decided that was just something mothers did._

_He and Adam had made hot dogs for the kids, and French fries and chocolate milkshakes. Well, chocolate for themselves and Evan and Ford and Guthrie; Crane wanted vanilla and since he did, Daniel of course did as well._

_Then, after all the chores were done, they quickly got the younger ones bathed and into their pajamas before the real fun of the evening could start. First they played games: Yahtzee and UNO and even Candyland from the old board game that was now Ford's but had originally been Brian's. Then Evan had a new game he'd got for his birthday, Clue, and they'd all played that, in teams so the younger kids were teamed up with an older brother. Crane had lobbied for Monopoly, but had been voted down. Only an idiot would play Monopoly with Crane McFadden. Not only did he always win, he dragged it out until everybody was bankrupt and it took hours._

_After the games, when the little ones were already starting to doze, Brian made popcorn and hot chocolate while Adam looked for the scariest movie he could find on the old TV. Tonight they couldn't find a movie, but the educational channel out of Sonora was showing a marathon of Doctor Who. Adam, Brian and Crane had seen episodes before, but the younger kids hadn't, so they settled in to watch the Daleks try to take over the Earth. Daniel and Evan kept saying "Exterminate!" over and over again along with the Daleks. Ford had made up his mind he wanted a "K-9" for his next birthday. Brian had been just a little sad, thinking the next time their parents went out, it would just be him baby-sitting. Adam would be away at college._

_"Here we are," Tom Barrett said._

_Startled, Brian looked at the big building that suddenly emerged from the fog. This wasn't County Hospital. Just as he was going to ask where they were, he saw a sign that said Sonora Regional Medical Center. Sonora? What were they doing all the way over here? What was Adam doing here? And where were his parents?_

_He was really frightened now but trying desperately not to show it. He was the oldest here. It was up to him to take care of the younger kids. He slid out of the car. Tom stepped forward to get Ford but Brian stopped him. He handed the sleeping Guthrie over to Crane and picked Ford up himself. Daniel clung to Crane, who needed both arms to hold Guthrie. "Daniel, you hold on to Evan's hand, and I'll hold on to his other one okay?" Brian coaxed._

_Daniel stared at him, his lip trembling, but obediently reached out for Evan. Then, with Evan between them, and Crane close behind with Guthrie, they followed Tom and the sheriff into the Emergency entrance._

_There was a woman there waiting for them. She was pretty, but she looked really serious and maybe a little sad. She nodded at the sheriff and said quietly, "The oldest boy is waiting in the chapel."_

_Brian was scared, so scared he could barely force himself to walk, to follow her. Daniel was crying softly and Evan kept saying, over and over, "I want Mama. I want Mama."_

_It seemed to take a long time to get to the chapel. They walked for a ways and then took an elevator and then walked some more. Finally they were there. The lady - Brian didn't know her name - opened the doors and then Brian could see Adam. He was all alone, sitting in the front pew, his head down. Pastor Green was standing close by, and he must have said something, because Adam turned around and looked at them. His eyes were swollen and red but he wasn't crying, not anymore. He walked to them and took Guthrie from Crane, and then he told them all to sit down. When they did, Pastor Green and the lady and Tom and the sheriff all stepped out and it was just the seven McFadden boys._

_Adam hugged baby Guthrie tightly. He didn't seem to know what to say, but finally, he got the words out._

_"Mom and Dad were in an accident tonight."_

_Brian wanted to scream, to yell, to run away. There was a horrible roaring in his ears and he didn't want to hear what Adam said next. But Adam kept talking, saying the words._

_"They didn't make it."  
_

**7Bf7B**

They might have added two new wings to the hospital in the last ten years, but the chapel was right where Brian remembered it being. He ran through the double doors, then skidded to a stop when he saw Ford sitting all alone in the first pew, his head bowed.

Brian was thrown back ten years in time. Ford turned into Adam, sitting there waiting to tell his brothers that their parents would never come home again. Brian felt the way his fifteen-year-old self had that night: frightened and sad and so angry.

Then Ford moved and Brian was back in the present again, no longer a frightened kid but a grown man. One thing hadn't changed though - his younger brother still needed him. Taking a deep breath, he waked down the aisle and slid into the pew next to Ford. "Are you okay?" he asked. He winced, because really, what a thing to ask. None of them were _okay._

Ford surprised him; his younger brother slid toward him and then suddenly flung himself at Brian, burying his head in Brian's chest. Brian could feel him shaking with sobs.

"Hey, hey," he soothed. "Hey. It's okay. It's going to be okay."

Ford just shook his head, refusing to look up.

"Ford, it _is_ going to be okay. Guthrie's going to be fine." Brian tried to project assurance; a little difficult since he wasn't sure what he was saying was the truth.

Ford finally looked at him. His eyes were glistening pools in the dimly lit chapel. "Brian, you can't live without your kidneys."

Brian rubbed the back of Ford's neck reassuringly. "You heard the doctors. Guthrie's going to get dialysis."

"Dialysis," Ford repeated in a little voice. "Brian, do you know what that _is?_ They take all the blood out of your body and run it through a filter and put it back in. It takes hours and you have to be perfectly still and even then, it doesn't cure anything. It doesn't do nearly as good a job as the kidneys do."

"But it'll be good enough for awhile." Brian had no idea how Ford had come to know so much about dialysis. "And then when he's strong enough, one of us will give him a kidney, and he'll be fine."

"What if none of us are matches?" Ford demanded. "I did some reading and-"

Brian didn't hear the rest of what Ford said, his mind focused on one thing.

_"I did some reading."_

Well, _of course _he had. Brian could have kicked himself for not thinking of that. Ford was Crane all over again. Given a problem, an unknown factor, and the first thing either of them would think about would be _Read all about it!_ Right now, Ford probably knew more about kidney disease than all of his brothers combined.

"The doctor-" What was that other doctor's name? Brian really needed to start paying better attention. "That doctor on the transplant team. He said at least one of us would be a match."

"Dr. Kauker said there was a good chance one of us would be a match. It's statistically probable."

Good Lord, Ford sounded like a question on the SAT. "Well, statistically probable sounds pretty good to me," Brian pointed out.

Ford was quiet for a long moment. "It's my fault," he finally whispered.

"Your fault?" Brian exploded. Then he remembered where he was and lowered his voice. "How is it your fault?"

"I was with him that day." Brian wasn't sure what day Ford was referring to. "We were chasing each other, playing around. Guthrie went into the creek to try to catch me. He wanted me to play, too, but I didn't want to get wet. I splashed water on him."

Brian rubbed a shaking hand - too much caffeine - over his tired eyes. "Ford," he groaned. "How does that make it your fault? I _know_ Guthrie. He went into that creek because he wanted to. That kid loves water. And how would you going in too, have helped? We'd have just ended up with two sick brothers."

"He's my little brother. I'm supposed to look after him. It's my responsibility. You and Adam always said-"

"Stop right there," Brian said. "We might have asked you to keep an eye on him when we were going to the movies or out on the range. But he's not your responsibility. He never was. Or at least, not any more yours than Daniel's. Or Evan's. Adam and I are the _parents_ in this family, remember? And Hannah, now, too, I guess. Is it Hannah's fault? Adam's? Mine?"

Ford shook his head. "He's my little brother," he repeated.

"Mine, too," Brian pointed out softly. He pulled Ford close to him in a hug. "Things happen, Ford. Sometimes they happen to us. That doesn't make them your fault, or mine, or anyone else's."

"Even Dr. Meade's?"

Anger twisted through Brian, hot as a volcano. He knew Crane had talked to Adam about suing Meade for his mistreatment of Guthrie. Brian knew it wasn't the money that Crane wanted as much as to make sure something this never happened to anyone else. Crane wouldn't be happy until Meade was out of business.

Brian just wanted to beat the man senseless.

But he couldn't say that to Ford. Ford didn't deal well with anger, not his own nor anyone else's. "Meade made a mistake," he said, the words tasting like dead ashes on his tongue.

Ford's voice was bitter and old beyond his years. "His mistake could end up killing my brother."

"Guthrie isn't going to die," Brian said sharply. "One of us will be a match, and he'll be fine. He has to be."

Ford was silent for a long time. "What if he isn't?" he finally asked in a tiny voice.

"He has to be," Brian insisted.

He wouldn't accept anything else.

**7Bf7B**

Brian couldn't wait to get out of the chapel, but Ford insisted on staying until he prayed. Brian pointed out he could pray for Guthrie anywhere, but Ford was determined and Brian let it go. He realized belatedly that Ford didn't remember the chapel, that he'd been too little and too sleepy that night, too overcome with losing his parents to remember where he was when he found out he'd lost them.

Brian remembered though. He stood near the doors, trying not to rush Ford, looking around the small sanctuary. It was a lot smaller than he remembered; there were only six pews on either side of an aisle. The room was lit by electric lights along the walls that looked like candles. There were real candles, three of them, on a table next to the altar, along with a vase of white flowers and a plain wooden cross. Since it was inside the hospital and had no exterior walls, there were no windows, but at the very front of the room there was a stained-glass panel showing a white dove against a blue background. The panel was lit somewhat so that it almost looked like a real window. All in all, it was a quiet, peaceful place. Brian might even have liked it if it didn't hold such bad memories.

When Ford was ready, they walked in silence back to the waiting room. Ford didn't seem to want to talk and Brian couldn't think of anything to say. He put his arm around his younger brother's shoulders though, as they walked, and Ford didn't shrug it away.

He heard familiar voices as they came into the waiting room. He saw Crane and Evan and Daniel, all standing up, between Hannah and someone else. Russ Wheeler. The older rancher had his hand out, reaching toward Hannah, when Brian determinedly stepped across the room and into his face. His anger came boiling to the surface and he welcomed it. He couldn't get angry with his brothers or Hannah, and Dr. Meade wasn't here, but he could vent his anger on Wheeler and enjoy it. "Wheeler, what the hell are you doing here?" He growled.

"Brian," he heard Hannah protest. Then he noticed Cleo and Mrs. Wheeler were there, too, and Mrs. Wheeler was holding a large wicker hamper in both hands. Russ Wheeler had a paper bag in his arms, and Cleo, whose face lit up when she saw Ford, had a smaller basket.

Wheeler didn't step back but he didn't confront Brian, either. He met his eyes evenly. "We brought you some food," he said quietly. "I was at the high school this morning, for parent-teacher conferences. That new filly history teacher there was pretty mad at Adam for standing her up."

Brian remembered the conversation at breakfast the morning before about the conferences and the teacher whom he'd somehow met and offended, all without learning her name.

Wheeler kept talking. "I knew there had to be a good reason you or Adam wasn't there, so I called Dr. Mayer's office. The nurse wouldn't tell me much, but she said Guthrie had taken a bad turn. The missus and I just wanted to check on him, make sure you all had some food."

"Thank you-" Hannah started, but Brian cut her off.

"Why do you keep coming around here, Wheeler? Acting like you care all of a sudden. What? You've given up trying to steal our ranch, run us out of business, now all of a sudden you're a friend of the family?"

Wheeler sighed. "Brian, I've done some things I'm not proud of. Especially when it comes to you boys and your ranch. But I never wanted anything bad to happen to any of you. Your father was my best friend for a lot of years. And time was, you boys called me Uncle Russ and Guthrie was at our place as much as he was at home."

Brian was so mad he couldn't even speak.

"You haven't been _Uncle Russ_ in a long time," Crane said quietly.

Wheeler nodded. "And that's my fault. I know that. I…" he looked at his wife, at Cleo who was holding Ford's hand tightly. "I got to thinking - hell, I can't even explain it. I got so focused on building my ranch up, getting rich and important, that I started cutting corners and… I didn't like the person I turned into, Crane. I haven't liked him for a long time. Figured it was time to maybe find my way back to who I used to be." He transferred the bag to Brian's arms. "I'll leave now. I know you don't trust me. You don't have any reason to. But if you need anything, if Guthrie needs anything, you can depend on me." He turned to leave.

"Did you pay Guthrie's hospital bill?" Crane asked abruptly.

Flabbergasted, Brian stared at his brother. What was Crane talking about? Wheeler paid that bill?

Wheeler hesitated, then turned around. He looked at Brian, then at Crane and Hannah. Finally, he turned to look at his wife.

"Tell them, Russ," she urged.

Wheeler shrugged, then looked Brian straight in the eyes when he answered Crane's question. "Yes. As a matter of fact…I did."

**7Bf7B**

Fury roared in Brian's ears. Without stopping to think, he charged the older man, belting him across the face and then, grabbing double fistfuls of shirt, shoved him against the wall. "You bastard!" he railed, shoving Wheeler hard. "What? You think can get the ranch this way? Call in a loan and take our home away?"

"Brian!" Ford yelped.

"Brian, would you think about this for a minute-" That was Crane.

Brian ignored them all. "You won't get our ranch. You hear me? I'll kill you before I let you have our ranch!"

"Brian, you've got it wrong," Wheeler said. And then Brian realized the older man wasn't fighting him, wasn't resisting at all. In spite of his anger, Brian eased back. But he kept his hands knotted in Wheeler's shirt.

"Brian! Let him go. Now!"

That was Adam's voice. Brian blinked, and looked around. Everyone was standing around them with horrified looks on their faces. Adam was standing next to him, gripping his shoulder tightly. "Let him go, Bri," he said again, voice quieter this time.

Slowly, Brian let go of Wheeler's shirt and stepped back from the man.

Two security guards ran in then, looking around wildly. They spotted Wheeler straightening his shirt and came to him, eyeing him and then Brian. "There a problem here?" one asked, his hand on his walky-talky.

"No problem," Wheeler replied, wiping blood from his nose with a handkerchief his wife handed him. "Just a little accident."

The older of the two security guards was watching Brian. "Are you sure?" he asked suspiciously.

"I'm sure. Just a misunderstanding between friends," Wheeler insisted.

They didn't look convinced but left anyway.

Brian was shaking. He clung to Adam's arm. "Are you all right?" he asked Wheeler. "I didn't mean-"

"I'm understand." Wheeler straightened his clothes and wiped his nose again. "Although I do wonder why you McFaddens always aim for my nose." His voice was light and teasing and he winked at Hannah, who looked mortified.

Brian took some deep breaths, calming himself down. He knew he shouldn't have attacked the older man, but the thought of losing the ranch to Wheeler…on top of everything else, had sent him over the edge. Bitter bile flooded his mouth. The thought of being beholden to Wheeler, of all people…

He wanted to vomit.

"How could he call in a loan that none of us ever knew he made?" Crane asked, his voice low but carrying.

Brian hadn't thought about that. He puzzled over it for a minute. Crane made sense, but why would Wheeler help them out? He took a deep breath and let it out again, feeling his body slowly relaxing.

Adam was staring at Wheeler as if he'd never seen him before. "Maybe we should talk about this?" he asked.

Cleo spoke up then, her voice shaken. "We brought lunch."

"Indeed we did." Mrs. Wheeler sat the hamper down on one of the plastic tables and opened it. "Why don't we all sit down and eat? And then I think Russ has something to tell you all." She reached over and patted Brian's arm. "I don't blame you, Brian, for getting mad, but I promise you, it isn't what you think."

Brian suddenly realized he was starving.

**7Bf7B**

Brian felt better once he'd finished eating two roast beef sandwiches on thick homemade bread with lettuce, tomatoes and dill pickles. Better, calmer, but really, _really_ confused. Because what Crane said made sense. How could Wheeler call in a loan that the Mcfaddens never agreed to and never even knew about?

The impromptu picnic seemed to help everyone. Hannah took a couple of sandwiches back to Daniel, who was sitting with Guthrie, and then came back and sat down next to Mrs. Wheeler. The two womane kept the conversation going while they were eating, and it was light, frivolous stuff, mostly about the new teacher at the high school. It wasn't until every crumb of every sandwich was eaten, and they were passing around homemade brownies and apple turnovers for dessert, that the conversation grew more somber.

Strangely enough, it was Ford that spoke first. Staring at Wheeler, he said, "Guthrie thinks you blame him for Paul getting killed. That that's why you've tried to run us out, make us lose the ranch."

Brian choked on his Coke. Adam exploded, "Guthrie thinks _what?_ Ford! Why didn't you ever tell me?"

Crane looked stunned. Hannah just seemed confused. Evan was still glaring at Wheeler, but he didn't react to Ford's statement at all. Which meant, whatever Ford was talking about, Evan knew about it too.

Wheeler sighed. His shoulders drooped. He reached for his wife's hand and held it tightly. "I don't blame him," he said slowly. "But…I think for a long time I resented that my son died and Guthrie lived. It's not right. And…I don't think that was why I was so focused on getting your ranch. I just convinced myself that I had to have the biggest spread around, had to make money, had to have something to pass on to my children." He smiled gently at Cleo. "But Del- he couldn't wait to get out of here. I think he would have anyway; he never really liked the ranch. But after Paul died…he just kept pulling away. And now," he sighed again. "Del isn't ever coming back to stay. He's studying icebergs, if you can believe that. Plans on going to graduate school in Alaska or Canada. That's his dream. I don't understand it, but I have to accept it."

He looked over at Ford and Cleo, sitting side by side. His smile was proud and a little rueful. "Then my little girl decided she liked a boy. And that boy - no, that young man, had the guts to come to me and ask to take my daughter to a dance. Even though he had to believe I would say no."

Brian hadn't known Ford had asked permission to take Cleo to the dance. From the look on Adam's face, he didn't know either. But, thinking about it, they should have realized Ford would do something like that.

"Why'd you say yes?" Crane asked.

"Oh, I started to say no. To order him off my property, to never look at my daughter again. And then I thought about it. Here was a young man who came from a good family. Who respected my daughter enough to ask her old man if he could date her. Who would value and protect my little girl." He looked at Cleo and Ford again warmly. "What more could I want for her than that? And, if I was going to let Cleo date a McFadden, maybe I'd better rethink the way I'd been acting like a horse's ass for years.

"Your daddy was probably my closest friend. Evan, you were right what you said last night. He'd be ashamed of me now. _I'm_ ashamed of me." He sighed. "I can't fix everything I did - I didn't tell Tillis to kill your bull, but he did and I wasn't sorry about it. And yes, thanks to Mrs. McFadden there, you got one of mine," he grinned ruefully at Hannah. "But I owe you a lot more than that. Paying Guthrie's bill here at the hospital…that just seemed maybe a way I could start making amends."

He stood up and walked over to Adam, his hand outstretched. "I'll understand if you tell me to go to Hell, Adam. But I'd be honored to shake your hand. You're a good man." He nodded at Brian. "Both of you are. You raised these boys right. And your father would be proud of you all."

Adam hesitated. He looked over at Brian. Brian nodded.

Adam stood up and grasped Wheeler's hand.


End file.
